


The End of the Rainbow

by Speedy1236



Series: Triple Threat Novels [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 72,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speedy1236/pseuds/Speedy1236
Summary: After Knuckles is attacked on Angel Island, Team Sonic embarks on a chase after Dr. Eggman, but this time not even the evil genius really knows what he's after. At the end of a long journey, not everyone will have found what they bargained for... Also: the Chaotix are in trouble, Amy gets over Sonic and new alliences are formed.This one has treasure hunts, wild goose chases, getting lost in the jungle, quicksand, kidnapping and explosions... There’s a bit of everything. It's probably more a classic adventure story than a typical Sonic story... if something like a typical Sonic story even exists.





	1. A Day Disturbed

**The End Of The Rainbow**

* * *

...

" _Is it really the treasure of gold_  
or the dance on the rainbow itself?"  
\- Edguy, 'Dragonfly' _–_

_...  
_

* * *

**A Day Disturbed**

His slow, calm breathing was close to inaudible in the room. It pretty much was a regular day at the Chaotix' office. The ventilator span lazily, making a small, steady noise while providing a bearable temperature in the room in spite of the heat of summer outside. Adding to the constant whirring, the muffled sounds of music were audible, a sound he had grown used to over the years.

Espio's eyes opened at a sudden, loud bang that pulled the ninja's mind out of a light meditation; and the chameleon turned his head around. He instantly relaxed again at identifying the youngest member of the team, Charmy Bee, as the originator of the disturbance. The six-year old that Vector and Espio had kind of adopted at finding him years ago had been occupying himself by throwing up a ball almost the size of his own head; a mistake in aiming had caused his toy to drop onto the edge of the big desk, the shock setting off a chain reaction that caused a bunch of papers, pencils and other stuff to fall down to the floor.

"Oops…" Charmy grinned sheepishly, rubbing tha back of his head. "Sorry."

Espio slightly shook his head, finding himself once again unable to be mad at the boy. It seemed to the ninja chameleon almost as if the three of them were family. "Why don't you go play outside, Charmy?", he asked calmly, not moving from his lotus seat.

"But… if you get a job while I'm gone?" Charmy scrambled to pick up the ball, hugging it to his chest, giving Espio a puppy-dog-eyed look that begged not to send him away.

Espio would have never considered doing; the bee's look made him smile nonetheless. "We didn't get an offer for the last three weeks; the chances we'll get one now are not quite bigger."

In fact, that was the main problem the team of detectives had to deal with at the moment. There were bills to pay, but without jobs there was no way to do so. Espio's gaze wandered over to the leader of their agency. Vector's large feet rested on top of the desk while the crocodile more lay than sat in his chair, hands crossed behind his neck, eyes closed, oblivious to the world around him and like often noticing nothing aside of the music coming from his earphones. He had not even noticed Charmy's accident. For a second Espio wondered if he was the only one being concerned for their outcome. Without a job soon, it'd be goodbye Chaotix…

He had not even quite finished his thought when the loud ringing of the phone shook him out of it. Startled with excitement, Charmy dropped his ball to the floor, beating his wings to fly over to the desk and pick up the phone; but the little bee had not even made half of the way over to it when Vector sat straight, pulling the headphones off his ears and reaching to answer the call. A rare smirk flashed on the stoic chameleon's face, knowing the only way to get Vector out of his own, music-filled world was the sound of a ringing phone.

"Hello? Chaotix Detective Agency, Vector speaking?", the crocodile spoke in his slightly rasping voice into the phone. He listened for a second as the caller answered him, then a smile lit his face, showing off the long teeth in his large jaw. His free hand gestured a thumbs-up at his two colleagues.

"Go ahead, Miss," the crocodile continued; and for the next minute he just listened, nodding from time to time and starting to grin softly. "Of course we will take the job, Miss. It's our policy: We never turn down work that pays! And in this particular case, it will be a very pleasant occasion to serve. We will call you as soon as we finish everything!" Vector laughed good-heartedly. "Yes, anytime, Miss. Goodbye."

Espio folded his arms as his 'boss' hung up and smiled at them. "So, we got a job?"

The crocodile nodded vigorously. "Yes, we will be paid, but I think I'll make the young lady a special prize."

Espio tilted his head as he listened to Vector's report about the call, a small frown growing on his brow. "Since when is it our job interfering with matters as private?"

Vector stood and shook his head. "Espio, my friend, you have _no_ sense for romantic occasions. Sometimes luck needs to be pushed a little. Beside, you know our policy."

Espio was about to contradict, when Charmy started flying around him, clasping his small hands together. "We get to have a jo-ob! We get to have a jo-ob!", the young bee called out happily.

Reluctantly the purple chameleon swallowed his uncertainty about the matter. "Alright, it's work that pays…"

Vector's hand friendly hit Espio's back. "That way I like you!"

* * *

"Whooooohooooooo!" A long, enjoyed cry forced out by a high resulting half of adrenaline and half of simple, genuine fun echoed through the hills of Mystic Ruins. A pair of red-sneakered feet was sending the constant sound of small thuds through the ground they touched, several hundred times per minute.

Sliding through a narrow turn, Sonic used one of the hills as a halfpipe to support his change of direction. Dashing further and faster, the blue hedgehog lowered his head into the wind of his speed, his green eyes tracking the leaves on the ground that twirled all around his feet, pushed up by the immense wind he created.

The smell of the ground still wet with a bit of dew was almost oblivious to him due to the hard stream of air in his face; all Sonic sensed was this heavy fresh air deeply filling his lungs as he raced through the early morning. The sun had just begun to crawl over the next hilltop and warming reddish beams painted the landscape, in response to it every water drop on the meadows turning into a brilliantly shining diamond.

The blue hedgehog slowed down when he returned to Tails' workshop. The building was a weird junction of house, mill of some sort and hangar. Stepping into the latter through a small side-entrance, the hedgehog decided getting to the kitchen upstairs to prepare some breakfast. He'd promised Tails yesterday they'd have it together, but Sonic had been wakened up early by the familiar feeling of itchy feet and gotten himself outside for a morning run. Relaxedly jogging up the stairs with soft, bouncing steps, the hedgehog whistled through his teeth. He felt like doing something fun today. He wasn't sure what exactly yet, but planning ahead had never been in his nature.

As he made his way over to the kitchen, Sonic found by the noises of dishes scraping against one another his adopted little brother Tails was already awake as well. Pushing the kitchen door open, the blue hedgehog grinned at the young fox who was about to place some breakfast stuff on the table. "Hey, morning Tails!"

A pair of twin tails twirling lazily behind his back, the fox grinned back, seeming not the least bit surprised to see the hedgehog come in from outside. "Good morning, Sonic! How was your run?"

"Cool as ever," Sonic replied, opening the fridge and sticking his head inside. "I'm right if I think you want that stuff, huh?", he asked with a small look of distaste on his face while holding up a bottle of milk, from the beautiful pastures of Green Hill Zone as the label proudly displayed.

"Yes," Tails grinned, used to the dialogue already. "Unlike you, I can drink two liters of milk without getting sick." He stuck out his tongue at the hedgehog.

"If you like you can _drown_ on the stuff," Sonic gave back, putting the bottle down on the table and diving back into the slightly unordered fridge. As most of his species, Sonic didn't go too well with dairy products. There sure were hedgehogs being much worse lactose intolerants than him, considering he ate ice and drank hot chocolate, but… pure milk? _No thanks_ , Sonic thought, pushing a few packages of unidentified food out of the way to get over to the ham.

Shutting the fridge's door again, the hedgehog looked over their table. "Where'd you put our toaster?"

"Down in the workshop," Tails answered crawling out of a cupboard and blindly throwing two cups over to Sonic. The hedgehog caught the first from where he stood, the second was saved from a crash to the floor by two high-speed side steps.

Putting the two cups down on the table, Sonic grinned again. "Ah, yes, now I remember. You wanted to repair the thing so our toasts won't start burning after a minute inside the thing anymore, right?"

"Absolutely correct." Tails snapped his fingers. "I'll get it!"

Sonic dropped onto one of the chairs, pouring himself some tea while he waited.

"Here it is!", Tails declared enthusiastically and put the toaster on the table. "Oh, and you got a letter!", he added while plugging the cable.

"A letter? Me?" Sonic blinked. He never got letters…

"Yes, you, unless you know someone else called 'Sonic the Hedgehog'…" Tails looked down onto the envelope before handing it to his friend, almost causing the milk bottle to fall down as he leaned over half of the table.

Sonic took the letter from Tails after putting a pair of toast pieces into the toaster. "Really, it's for me. I wonder who sent it." The hedgehog looked up at Tails. "Maybe it's from Eggman, and he's inviting us to spoil another one of his plans."

"The only one who ever sent us a message to come spoil his schemes was Metal Sonic," Tails reminded him. "And there was a plan behind all this."

Sonic shrugged casually. "Whatever." He ripped the envelope open to pull out a piece of paper. "Dear Mister Sonic," he read aloud, "Please come to the beach in Station Square at half past twelve today, it is very important. Signed: The Sender." The hedgehog put the letter down. "This is weird, huh?"

Tails frowned. "Maybe it's a trap. Or you got a secret fan."

"I've got a lot of fans, but no secret ones," Sonic laughed. "Oh well, I'll find out. Maybe it's just –" Sonic was interrupted when a small bang sounded from the toaster. The two pieces of bread rocketing out of it carried a trail of smoke as they flew up halfway to the ceiling and a small flame darted out of the toaster behind them. Sonic stared at the smoking device as the black pieces of toast dropped back onto its casing, then slowly turned to Tails. "You _sure_ you fixed it?"

Tails needed a second to get his gaping jaw closed. "I... thought so…"

* * *

A sudden sense of anxiety startled him awake, the soft relaxation of his nap immediately forgotten. Knuckles shot to his feet, with one quick look assuring the Master Emerald itself was fine.

Still, his senses were screaming at him, tugging on the close link between guardian and Master Emerald power. Knuckles knew after just a second of listening to it that it was nothing directly affecting the Emerald; it was something affecting the island's ground and therefore the slight flow of power that went through it.

The red echidna took off running into the forest, not minding the strikes of branches and thorns against his legs as he tore through the thick undergrowth. He was not alone any more, and that was _always_ a reason to be worried.

Starting to hear faint, but unfamiliar noises, Knuckles turned towards the direction they appeared to come from. He left the forest behind and swiftly climbed up a group of rocks. Rounding the corner of a small valley, Knuckles' steps briefly faltered at the sight of a dozen robots, using laser beams to cut the rock and earth. However, his surprise lasted just for a brief moment, then the guardian hurtled himself at the machines, a growl akin to a war cry rising from his throat.

The robots quickly adapted to the new situation, abandoning their work and aiming their lasers at the echidna. Knuckles dived to the right, swinging a blow at the nearest robot he could reach, his spiked namesakes pinching the armor of the machine's chest.

It was one of the humanoid models he'd seen on many occasions before, their design resembling the look of their creator Dr. Eggman. They were clumsy and not very fast, their most dangerous weapons either sharp kinds of spears or guns, but Knuckles found their armor had improved. The one he'd punched sure showed a remarkable dent, but his fist had not managed to get through to the interior.

Striking out at a second of that sort, Knuckles' eyes darted over the few other members of the robot group. They were floating in the air, long arms hanging down from an upper body that had always reminded Knuckles of these slimy creatures you sometimes saw at the beach. The echidna grimaced, remembering a couple of unhappy occasions he'd gotten trapped inside the force field they carried below their bodies. Without the help of his friends he wouldn't have gotten out of there again. Making a mental note to avoid capture being on his own, Knuckles lurched at one of the floating bots, jumping up into the air to hit the head. He had aimed well, the machine tilted and dropped to the ground.

Still in mid-jump, Knuckles tried in vain dodging the laser beams one of the walking robots aimed at him. Flaring his dreads and rolling to the side while still airborne, the echidna still screamed out as one of the hot rays grazed his arm. Landing not quite gracefully on one hand and one knee, he tried his best to ignore the smell of burned skin and fur as well as the hot sting from his left upper arm. Not even wasting the time to look at the extent of the damage, Knuckles charged at the robot having shot him, not favouring his injured arm, but putting enough anger into his punch that it blew the head of the machine clear off its body.

Spinning around, Knuckles found two of the humanoid machines having leaned down to the hole they'd been interrupted digging, their hands loading several objects they'd unearthed into the force field of another floating bot. Knuckles couldn't make out much of the robots' haul, jumping over to them he just noticed the hole was empty now and one of the smaller robot's just about to add the last piece to the other things in the sizzling field.

Intercepting the way of its arm, Knuckles snatched the small object from its grip, briefly noticing it was some sort of medallion, a round plate attached to a golden chain, but he didn't have time examining it, instead, he just wrapped the chain twice around his wrist so he wouldn't lose it.

Obviously having decided there was no more stuff to steal or alerted by the guardian's interference, the floating robot started its retreat. Knuckles narrowed his eyes and ran after it. "Come back here, thief!"

* * *

Sonic slowed down to a walk when he reached the city of Station Square. The way some of the buildings tilted and the few ruins here and there still reminded him of the near disaster that had taken place almost a year ago, after Eggman had set free a monster from the ancient past, but the citizens had been busy repairing the damage. The streets were tidy and clean, the walls of most buildings freshly painted and small trees had been planted aside the roads to add some green to the looks of the city center.

Taking his time, the blue hedgehog wandered along the streets; it was a while since he'd been here. He briefly stopped in front of the broad window of a shop that offered sports articles for sale, his green eyes wandering over a few skateboards and tennis baskets to stop on a pair of running shoes. Sonic glanced down on his feet. Compared to the shiny pair in the window, his sneakers looked worn, dirty and… yes, old. The blue hedgehog looked back up to study the offer again. Maybe later, right now he didn't have much time or money… but he could ask in the shop if they had these things in red. It was his favourite color, and together with his buckles it had grown to a sort of trademark.

Strolling along the street again, Sonic passed a Burger Shop, forcing his feet not to follow his stomach that took the opportunity to demand some of the food he could smell from inside; but he was heading to the beach, and right now he was curious to know what would await him there.

When he reached aforementioned beach it was disappointingly empty, no-one there aside of the a few mews and himself. Shrugging, the hedgehog walked a few steps to look around, resting his hands on his hips. "Either I'm too early or they're late," he muttered, in an old habit of impatience starting to tap his foot, but then his sharp ears caught the small rustle of feet tracing over the sandy ground and he turned over his shoulder, but there was no-one there. Before Sonic got the chance to wonder about it, something connected hard with the side of his neck and the world melted into darkness.


	2. Misunderstandings

_What_ _happened_? Sonic had no idea when he began to come around, but the steady sound of something spinning rhythmically caused one of his pointy ears to twitch in listening.

_Wheeesh wheeesh wheeesh..._

It took another few seconds for memory to start kicking in. Someone had knocked him out, but to his big surprise he didn't really feel anything like hurt. Still, a light approach of nervousness made his eyes fly open, just to squeeze shut again at the brightness around. _Ow._

While he waited for the stinging sensation behind his retinas to fade, Sonic discovered at least a bit about his location even without looking around. His other senses were quicker resuming their work than his eyes, and they told him that he was lying on a slightly too springy couch. It felt a little bouncy even with just the small movement his breathing caused and a few of the springs under the soft tissue of what he assumed was a sofa were pressing into his back. But an uncomfortable couch was better than a cold, dark dungeon... or a metallic room full of high-tech machines. Sofa was weird, sure, sofa was unexpected, but sofa was very unlike Eggman at least.

Having settled that, Sonic decided it couldn't be so bad and he carefully took another attempt opening his eyes. The room wasn't near as bright as he'd thought; after a few times of blinking the blurs cleared to reveal a wood-beamed ceiling with a few miserable lamps and a spinning, big ventilator. "What the…?", he mumbled, entirely to himself, but there came a reply to his words out of the room around him. Well, sort of a reply, anyway.

"Hey, he's waking up! You didn't kill him!", a youthful voice shouted strangely exited.

"Of course I didn't," a deep-voiced male gave back, his tone appearing slightly annoyed. "Am I allowed to remind you that this wasn't my idea anyway?"

"Oh, be quiet, both of you. We discussed this already!", a third voice tuned in, rasp and sharp, but not aggressive. Still, its slight authority silenced the others.

_What kind of a strange kidnapping is that?,_ Sonic wondered, moving to sit up and look at his captors. The first thing he noticed however was that his feet were bound around the ankles. _Oh great._

"I apologize for the rude treatment and the discomfort we put you in," the deep-voiced addressed him while walking over to him, "I want you to know it wasn't my idea."

Sonic finally looked up and just dumbfoundedly stared at the purple chameleon standing in front of him, momentarily forgetting about his tied feet. "Espio?", he brought out after what felt like a minute of stupidly gaping at him.

"Correct," the ninja nodded calmly, holding a glass out at the hedgehog. "Here, I think you could refresh yourself."

Still too baffled to contradict, Sonic accepted the drink, downing the water when he noticed he really was thirsty. As he put the glass down, he recalled his bound feet. "Okay, what is this all about? Is this some strange joke or something?"

Espio muttered something under his breath, looking away and out the window.

Before Sonic could wonder about the reaction, the leader of Team Chaotix decided to answer his question instead of the quiet chameleon. "Of course this isn't a joke. Don't be mad at us, we're just serving a client, and I'm sure you'll appreciate it in a while."

Sonic frowned, finally managing to actually sit properly on the couch. He felt for his head but found just a tiny sore spot at the left side of his neck. Considering how short his neck was, Espio had definitively aimed well to hit him there. At least Sonic assumed it was him, being invisible and all it was easy sneaking up on him like that. But apparently the ninja didn't only know to how move around unseen, he had surely not only aimed well but also dosed the hit acurately to knock Sonic out, but it hadn't left a headache behind. Still... "Okay, I guess you've been somewhat careful, but I really can't see why I will appreciate being kidnapped. If you want to talk to me, you could have just asked me to come over and visit you; you didn't have to hit me."

"Well, we were given the job to capture you for a surprise, but knowing you can run faster than the speed of sound… this was the only thing we could think of…" Vector looked sheepish and shrugged in apology. "Usually, brute force isn't our preferred way, but we thought considering it will help in a matter of hearts, it isn't too bad."

" _You_ thought," Espio muttered matter-of-factly, arms folded on his chest, but he looked back to the others finally.

Sonic blinked, trying to make sense of their statements. "Wait… A matter of _what_?"

Vector stood from his seat to walk over to Sonic and sat down aside of his involuntary guest on the couch. "Listen, I know admitting one's feelings is hard sometimes, I know if you're shy it is not easy, but running from your feelings will just make you unhappy, believe me." The crocodile placed one of his big hands on the younger hedgehog's shoulder in a patronizing gesture. "Maybe you already are, so we decided to help you through that. This way, we'll make you happier!"

Slowly something clicked in Sonic's brain and he facepalmed. "Give me one guess who your client is."

"See?" Vector smiled and pointed at Sonic. "He's already thinking of her. Isn't that cute?"

"Guys? You've been tricked." Sonic sighed, starting to feel annoyed now. "Man, getting others to kidnap me is really weird... Even for someone lile Amy." Sonic's eyebrows had lowered a little, his voice taking a slightly irritated tone.

"You... aren't just too shy to go out with her?" Vector seemed confused and Sonic felt a little sorry for him as he shook his head.

Espio snorted. "I wonder why we keep falling for something like that." He looked at the crocodile. "You taking a place in her team for the Extreme Gear Grand Prix didn't bring us any good either..."

"Shut up," Vector gave back, but he seemed more disappointed than angry at the moment.

Even Charmy looked disappointed. "No romance then?"

Sonic shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He leaned down to undo the rope around his ankles, by now pretty sure none of the Chaotix would stop him. "I'm outta here. Give Amy my regards. I'll just forget what happened today, but you can tell her it's getting old." He stood up.

Vector's hand still stretched out at where Sonic had just left. "I'm sorry, dude, it was a misunderstanding!"

The hedgehog nodded, giving his best not to glare at the Chaotix, knowing they had meant only good... even if they were very unlucky at picking things to try doing good at. "Accepted." He tried a smile. "Have a nice day, guys. See ya, next time hopefully without waking up on a couch." In a flash of blue he was out of the office.

Vector stared after him, bowing his head. "I… just meant to help."

"We all know that," Espio assured him, sitting down where Sonic had been sitting a couple seconds before. "Even Sonic does. You always just want to do good; that's an honourable character trait." The chameleon spoke calmly, not mentioning any longer he'd been doubting the whole operation all the time anyway. As much as he felt like right away telling Vector his opinion, it wouldn't help them at all, and even while angry at the general situation, Espio found it hard being still mad at Vector when he looked at the picture of misery before him. He knew the crocodile had a big heart, but unfortunately most of the time he tried to help others, it turned out to be some kind of trick or misunderstanding.

Just like that time when they'd tried to save a client that could only communicate with them using a small mobile radio… In the end the client had turned out to be the notorious evil scientist Dr. Eggman that had been unfortunate enough to have one of his creations go insane and try to do his job, in that case taking over the world. On the way trying to free the client, they'd gotten to think Cream the Rabbit had been kidnapping a chao, while trying to 'free' that chao they'd gotten into a fight…. And in the end they'd been standing there like everybody's fools. Of course, they had helped saving the world… in a way… but it still wasn't their most successful operation.

"Maybe it is," Vector snapped Espio out of his reverie. "But now, we won't be paid, we've just been fooled again and still haven't earned any money."

Espio sighed. At least it seemed he wasn't the only one worried about their not great financial situation. "We have to stop taking jobs from Amy. Joining her team in the Extreme Gear Grand Prix also didn't fill our empty pockets."

"Hey! What's the long faces? We'll just find another client and another job!", Charmy called lightly.

Vector lifted his head to look at the smiling young bee, his mood lift a little. "Maybe you're right, Charmy. We just shouldn't give up so easily."

Espio nodded, hiding his smile. A sad Vector was so unfamiliar… He was glad they'd cheered him up again.

* * *

When Knuckles caught up with the fleeing robot it had almost reached the edge of Angel Island. _Escaping? Not on my watch,_ Knuckles thought _. First dig on my island and then take flight with my stuff? Even though I have no idea what it is and that it was even there, it comes from the floating island... And it's gonna stay there!_

Running up and directly leaping at the machine as soon as he was in reach, the echidna managed to snatch a grip on its arm. Hurtling it up and to the side, he slammed it to the ground, temporarily stunning it, but to his dismay not harming the force field. _Damn, I thought that'd work_ , the guardian cursed inwardly, but against his hopes the field seemed capable of withstanding even the brute force of his attack, and the mysterious stolen objects remained inside. Before Knuckles had a chance to take a closer look at them even through the flickering barrier, a hard metallic body rammed into his back and threw him off his feet.

Gasping for breath, Knuckles rolled over, protectively holding up his arms to shield his head. When he found he had a few seconds, he quickly got to his feet and dropped into a fighting stance to await the robots that had followed him.

As if having forgotten they didn't carry any spears, three of the Egg Pawns came running straight at Knuckles, trying to run the echidna over. Watching attentively, Knuckles waited for the last possible moment, then ducked into a crouch, sending one of the robots toppling over his shoulder. Obviously having falsefully ignored the existence of Angel Island's edge, all three toppled into the sky below.

Knuckles grinned. _Not so smart, are you?_ For just a second he looked at where the bots had disappeared, amusing himself with the thought that Eggman apparently failed to give them any sort of brains, then remembered what had brought him into the position of watching robots fall off his island.

Turning back to take care of the floating robot for good, to his big surprise Knuckles found that it had recovered from his attack. _Man, those floating robots sure take more to break than the others_ , Knuckles noticed in annoyance. The damn thing now floated steadily again and was up to leaving his island for good. It adapted the same course the others had taken, but due to being able to hover safely it was a more intelligent move than the attack of its companions. But Knuckles didn't plan on letting it get away.

"Oh no, you don't…", he shouted - in spite of having no idea if it could hear him - and jumped clear after it as it crossed over the edge, fighting off the short grimace when his hurt arm complained about being stretched out for gliding. Directing his glide in attempt to hit the machine's head, Knuckles approached it from the side.

Unfortunately for him, the robot seemed to have good optical sensors, just when Knuckles came close enough to almost hit it, it lifted its hand. The red optics blinked briefly as if it wanted to mock the echidna, then a metal palm almost the size of his entire body collided with the echidna as if he was a fly the oversized robot hand wanted to chase off. The force of the impact was a lot bigger than required for any flies, though. Breath knocked out of him, the echidna couldn't even scream as he fell out of the sky like a stone.

* * *

"Hey Tails!"

The little fox looked up from his work at the call of his name. He dropped the brush into the pod of red color and crawled out from beneath the Tornado's lower right wing. Standing upright he found Sonic walking over to him, and by the way his steps were not as springy as they tended to be Tails could tell the hedgehog was tired.

"Hi Sonic! How was your meeting?", the fox asked curiously.

Sonic grimaced. "Don't ask. It was pretty… _strange_ is the least I could say."

Tails frowned. It was rare that Sonic didn't want to talk to him about his day; usually the hedgehog liked telling him all sorts of random stuff that happened to him. Taking a closer look at his friend, Tails found his fur slightly damp with sweat.

"So, then.. How was the rest of your day?"

Sonic shrugged, but the irritation quickly drained from his features again. "I was kinda upset after all that fuss in Station Square, so I went out running. That's… basically what I did today I guess."

"Must have been lots of running, looking at you," Tails noticed.

Sonic grinned. "Hey, it's summer! It's hot outside!"

Tails smiled as well. "I know, it's hot in here, too. But it helps the paint drying more quickly."

"It looks cool," Sonic remarked walking around the plane slowly.

Tails nodded proudly and indicated the engine cowling. "Here, look, I managed to fix the dents left by these bullets, but the color didn't take it all too well, so I figured it needs a new paint job."

Sonic smirked, reaching to playfully ruffle the fur between Tails' ears. "Makes sense. We really should tell Eggman to stop shooting at our nice plane, that'd spare you a lot of work… But maybe you'd be bored then…"

Tails tilted his head in thought for just a second. "I almost think so…" He giggled.

"Oh, and Tails?" Sonic folded his arms, a smug smirk once again flashing over his face.

"What?"

"You've got paint all over yourself." The blue hedgehog chuckled, and Tails looked himself down.

"Oops…" The white fur on his belly and chest, as much as his forearms and legs were stained with colourful markings that weren't exactly intentional. "It must have dropped on me…"

"You know, you were supposed to paint the _plane_ , not _yourself_ …", Sonic started, but had to stop speaking because he was laughing too hard.

Tails smiled sheepishly. "I… guess I could need a bath."

Sonic was still chuckling. "You bet you do, you'll look like you mistake yourself for the brush otherwise! A bath could actually help your acceptance in public…"

Tails giggled, lightly elbowing his friend. "Oh yes? That doesn't only go for me, Mister 'I look and smell as if I was running through a sauna'!"

The blue hedgehog immediately stopped chuckling. "You're implying? I don't reek!"

A light shrug came from Tails. "It's definitively not me."

Sonic frowned, running a hand through his really slightly damp quills and fur. " _Damn_."

* * *

"Pathetic little pest." The muttered comment at the sight of Knuckles' powerless frame tumbling down gave a slight echo in the big room that disturbed the constant sounds of numerous fans cooling computer cores and other machinery all over the base.

Still, in spite of his words, if there had been an observer he would have spotted the sparkle of satisfaction in Ivo Robotnik's eyes; something that would have been impossible at any other place. The scientist detested any forms of bright light in his eyes, leading him to constantly conceal them with a pair of dark glasses. Of course it was not just his own comfort, he very well knew the psychological effect of withdrawing the chance to judge him by his eyes from his enemies and replacing it with a cold, darkened mirror image.

Being the scientific genius he was, Robotnik had added a lot of useful features to his glasses, such as them containing small semi-transparent screens that would provide him with important information without having to look anywhere in particular. Originally designed to assist aiming his weapons at this annoying blue rodent of a hedgehog, he had greatly improved the system as it had turned out not much helpful in its original sense of design, but many others.

Sometimes when just sitting in his own base, he'd allow his eyes a rest from that overlay though. Such an occasion was now. There were no blueprints for new robot models in work at the moment, neither was there any scheme to be worked out. He had gone through that work already, and now he was just watching a small delegation of his machines fulfilling the first step of his brilliant plan.

The giant screen in front of him provided him with a close to oversized view of the events, directly radio-transmitted from the robots' optical sensors; of the successful excavation as much as of the echidna's interference with it that had led Robotnik to voice his opinion aloud in spite of no-one being there to hear it.

A smile grew on the scientist's face at the sight of the red mobian's body spiralling towards the lower edge of the picture to be swallowed up by the cloud layer. If that little creep was lucky he would regain control over himself before it was too late to glide to safety… if not… Well, then he'd at least miss the humiliation of being finished off for good by his own people's legacy. Actually, the idea was more alluring than his immediate death. Seeing his face, as well as Sonic's…

Robotnik leaned back in his seat, his body wobbling as he cracked up with mad laughter.


	3. New Perspectives

****

The small sound of cautious knocking against his door woke Sonic up. Sleepily the hedgehog rolled over, shuffling a little under his covers and blinking at the bright morning sunlight falling onto his face from the skylight above.

The knocking came again, this time followed by Tails' voice. "Sonic? Are you awake?"

"I am now…", the hedgehog brought out just in time to get finished before a rather big yawn came over him.

Having gotten a reply, Tails opened the door and stepped into his brother's room. It wasn't very big, and half of it was filled with a huge blue sofa Sonic also used as a bed when he was here, anyway, and not on one of his lengthy trips around the world. Though there was a cupboard easily spacious enough to host the not big amount of personal things Sonic owned, the hedgehog didn't seem very fond of making use of it. The floor was covered with comic books, socks and jewel cases of Sonic's favourite music; the corner under the pitched roof to the right of the door was occupied by a snowboard, Sonic's personal Extreme Gear, a pair of rollerblades and the hedgehog's E-guitar.

Taking a big step over the comic books and carefully avoiding stepping onto the jewel cases in the meantime, Tails walked a little closer to the blue sofa and the equally blue hedgehog draped over it who was currently attempting to untie the knot in his blanket. "Good morning. Sorry if I woke you."

"Morning," Sonic gave back, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "Looking at the sun it's time to get up anyway, huh?" He reached under the sofa to pull out a box, stuffed his pillow and the bed sheets into it and pushed the box back under the sofa.

Tails shrugged. "I guess so. I just wanted to know if you'd like to come with me."

"Come with you?" Sonic looked up at him, sleepiness starting to drain away. "Where'ya going?"

"Just taking the Tornado for a ride. I haven't decided on a location yet," the fox answered, watching Sonic's bare feet tripping through the mess on his floor over to the drawer.

After snatching a pair of socks and some fresh gloves, the hedgehog turned around to Tails, speaking while balancing on one foot in the attempt to pull on his socks. "You mind if I suggest one?"

Tails shook his head, half in reply, half at Sonic's clumsy look. All the people, him included, admiring the hedgehog's artistic qualities and his absolute sure footing wouldn't quite believe their eyes seeing him during the first five minutes after waking up. "No, of course not. What do you have in mind?"

"Some place with casinos." Sonic finished his struggle with the socks, slipped on his gloves and dropped back onto his couch to get his shoes on, causing Tails to wonder why he'd gone through that trouble before instead of putting on his socks the same way. The little fox decided to just blame it on a still sleepy brain.

"Casinos? You need money? Or are ya just feeling lucky today?" Tails grinned.

"A bit of both maybe." Sonic grinned back, indicating his worn-out footwear. "Y'know, I think I could go for some new ones."

Tails tilted his head regarding the runners. "I s'pose so. You really demand a lot of them…"

Sonic laughed. "You could say so, yeah." He stood up again, a lot more elegantly than before making his way over to Tails. "Gimme ten minutes, alright?"

Tails smiled. "Sure."

* * *

It wasn't fair. Nothing of this. Why couldn't things ever work out how she wanted them to? Amy Rose blew her nose and carelessly dropped the hanky to the floor where it joined a fair amount of alikes that had gathered in front of her sofa already.

Right now was one of the rare moments in the 12-year-old girl's life she could remember being knocked out of her positivity. In fact, the last time she remembered something like this happening was years ago when she'd lost her parents. Back then little Amy had felt so alone, as if the complete big world just hated her… and then he'd come around. From the moment on she'd seen his photo in a newspaper the first time… it was a small spark relighting a powerful blaze in her heart. Whenever she felt down, she'd just close her eyes and see his face, his smile and those shining green eyes… and think of how he rescued her from danger ever again… He'd always come when she needed him. Wasn't that a clear sign that he shared the same wish she did? Together forever?

But then… whenever she got a chance to get near him, he'd run off at a speed she couldn't possibly match for long; sometimes she wondered how she could keep up with him for just a while anyway. And whenever he didn't run away immediately he would still avoid her, barely even talk to her … Was it possible to be so shy? Or was it more like he was playing with her?

Amy meant to find out. Her newest idea to eternally win Sonic's heart had seemed so budding… She'd based it on the magic that had been surely involved when she had definitely fallen for him. She had engaged the Chaotix to capture him so she could rescue him… but those idiots had screwed it up. They had not been supposed to show themselves and tell him about everything!

The pink hedgehog sniffed again. An hour ago she'd gotten a call from a very pissed Vector, blaming her for him and his team making fools out of themselves. Not only that, but that rude crocodile had shouted at her to get some sense and go pursue someone else, Sonic wouldn't be interested in her. Amy had hung up on the detective.

But his words had still left an imprint on the young teen. What if - the concept seemed so impossible - what if Sonic really didn't want her? What if everything she'd ever been striving for in her life… was just an illusion? For the first time in her life, Amy considered that horrible idea, and the longer she sat on her couch, the wider the thought spread, the more shattering it felt. Her fingers clutched tighter around the edges of the hanky as she effortlessly tried to hold back a new oncoming of tears.

Her crying ceased after a while again and the pink hedgehog dropped against the back of her couch, physically and emotionally exhausted. She didn't hurt that much any more, instead she felt numb, empty. Chewing her bottom lip, Amy's eyes wandered aimlessly across the room. Every wall in the small apartment was covered with pictures, cut out of newspapers, or photos she'd made herself. Pictures of him, grinning confidently into the camera, holding out his hand with fingers forming the victory sign. For four whole years… he had been her purpose, her guideline. Whenever she did something, anything, it was to impress him, to get closer to being his girlfriend.

It wasn't meant to be as it seemed. She had to –

Amy's bitter thoughts were rudely interrupted when the bell's ringing penetrated her pondering. Who in the world could that be? The hedgehog stood and was already halfway to the door when the thought that she had to look horrible struck her. She wiped her eyes again and rightened her dress, unsure if any of these action would truly help. The bell rang a second time.

"I'm coming!", Amy shouted, deciding it didn't mean too much how she looked now. Not anymore… Shaking her head to at least momentarily get rid of these thoughts, she made her way over to the door and opened it.

"Hello Amy," she was greeted immediately in a polite, high-pitched voice and Cream bowed her head slightly. If she'd been in any better mood, Amy would have giggled at the way her younger friend always watched her manners; and she would have surely laughed at being jumped at by Cream's chao Cheese.

"Chao chao!" The tiny blue creature dropped against her shoulder to hug her and snuggle up to her side, but stiffened briefly, looking up at her face with its big, black eyes. "Chao?"

Amy swallowed. Chao were highly empathic and Cheese had already covered her depressed mood in a matter of mere seconds. She flicked her arm around the small creature, hugging it gently. "'S'okay Cheese," she mumbled. "Hi Cream."

"Amy, have you been crying?" Cream's brown eyes widened a little as she looked the hedgehog over. "Did you hurt yourself? Last week I hurt myself falling down the stairs…"

Amy giggled nervously. "Yeah, I… fell down the stairs. Stupid me, huh?"

Cream frowned and it gave her childish face an almost ridiculously serious look. "Amy, you don't have any stairs…"

"Umm…"

"Are you sad, Amy?", Cream continued, her voice heavy with worry now.

The pink hedgehog wanted to deny it, but her eyes had already started to water again. "I –"

Suddenly Cream looked guilt-stricken. "Don't cry, Amy! I don't want you to be sad!"

Amy quickly brushed her fingers over her cheeks. "It's not your fault, Cream." It was enough that _she_ was feeling so down, if little Cream felt bad because of her now…

"What happened, Amy?"

"Oh, it's not so important, Cream…" Amy uncomfortably shifted her weight.

"Yes, it is. You're my friend and I don't like people being sad. Come inside and let me help you!"

Amy blinked confusedly as the normally so shy and careful rabbit girl grabbed her hand and pulled her into the house. Carrying Cheese, since the chao refused letting go of her, the hedgehog just followed, overwhelmed by the sudden childish determination Cream was showing.

Half an hour later Amy had reported her complete misery to Cream, with a few tears in between and constantly hugging Cheese. Holding the chao made her feel strangely better, as did talking to Cream. Amy doubted that the little kid Cream still was really understood her problem, but she was listening, nodding her head to everything Amy said, and the hedgehog didn't feel so alone anymore. Her anger towards the Chaotix had subsided by now, and her desperation over a lost romantic dream at least wasn't as very bad as it had felt before.

Thoughtfully petting Cheese's head, the emoticon ball above it constantly in heart form, Amy looked around in her room again. "Maybe I really have to accept that Sonic won't marry me… but it's so hard, Cream." Cream tilted her head at her, smiling sympathically, encouraging her enough to keep talking. "You know," Amy gestured around in the room, "everything I did… my whole life was dedicated to Sonic. I don't know what to do without him. I always just wanted to be his girlfriend. What am I gonna do now?"

Cream shrugged. "How about just trying to be Amy?"

The hedgehog blinked. "Do you know what you just said?"

"I don't want to make you feel bad, Amy… but, you _are_ very different when you're around Sonic." Cream awkwardly wrang her hands.

"What… what's different about me, Cream?"

"It's… you just see Sonic, you do strange things like running after him or jumping at him, when people say things you get out your hammer and hit them…" Cream looked at Amy, lifting up a finger indicating she had something important to say. "But the Amy I know always likes to help people, protects me, can always make others laugh, always understands people… okay, you can get angry pretty quickly, but that's not so bad, Mister Knuckles does so too…"

Amy blinked, slowly assessing Cream's statement. She did like helping people, in fact she had helped a lot of people: The little birdie, the friendly robot, Big, Cream… yes, she'd even helped Shadow understand he didn't mean to destroy the planet. All these were things she'd done completely on her own, just because it was good doing them, and all of these things had made her very proud of herself. For the first time today Amy felt a smile spreading on her face. "You're right, Cream! I really should be Amy more."

Cream clasped her small hands together at seeing her friend smile again. "Are you fine now, Amy?"

"Not completely fine, but a lot better. Thank you, Cream!" She reached over to pull the rabbit into a hug.

"Chao chao!" Cheese happily started bouncing on Amy's lap. Both girls giggled as they watched their cute friend and pet.

"Cheese is happy, too!", Cream noticed, then suddenly clasped her hand to her mouth. "I totally forgot to tell you why I came here! You know, Mum and me just came back from visiting my aunt; and when we arrived home the door was all broken and someone had stolen from us!"

Amy's jaw dropped. "What did they steal, Cream?"

"A vase from our living room, that one with the colourful little symbols on it, and a strange stone plate thingy Mum still had from my Dad," the rabbit blubbered exitedly. "Mum says she wants it back 'cause it reminds her of when Dad was still alive. I don't mind the stone much, but the vase was so beautiful and you could put so many flowers in there! It was my favourite!"

"Did you call the police?"

"Mum did, but they said chances aren't very big that the thieves will be caught, and the things were not very valuable. But… I liked them…" Cream hung her head and Amy put an arm around her.

"Weren't there any clues?", the hedgehog asked.

Cream shook her head. "Just the broken door. The police said it was very strange that only these two things had been stolen and that it maybe was a collector taking them…"

Amy frowned. A vase and a stone plate really weren't exactly the kind of things that get stolen usually. Why didn't they take any money or jewellery?

"Mum called Vector and his friends to find our things back," Cream continued, "but I don't know if they'll find it… They are never really lucky, you know…?"

Amy grimaced. "Yeah. Hey, I've got an idea! How if we try find your vase by ourselves?"

Cream brightened. "That'd be so cool, Amy! We could go on another adventure! But… how are we going to find it?"

Rubbing her chin, Amy racked her brains. "Hmm… I know! We'll do it like really clever agents!"

"How do really clever agents do it, Amy?" Cream's ears fluttered exitedly.

"We let others do the work," Amy explained. "We let the Chaotix search and we make sure they don't make any mistakes!"

* * *

Knuckles didn't attempt catching his fall as he tumbled through the clouds; there was no good way telling which way was up anyway. When he had at least gotten more or less sure that down was the direction he was moving in – worryingly fast moving even – the echidna had stretched out into a glide, disregarding the complaints his bruises and the burns on his arm voiced aloud about him going all braced.

The rather simple sounding idea of 'glide down to safety' proved quickly how difficult it was in reality. Several kilometres of altitude on the island meant one thing… several kilometres high up in the open atmosphere was another. The invisible field of power the Master Emerald held around Angel Island was not only keeping it afloat and stealthy, it also provided comfortable temperatures, air pressure and things like that, allowing for life surrounded by a not very friendly environment.

Out here without that protection, the sharp winds were tearing the warmth out of the small frame that struggled to stay at least remotely in control of the direction it moved in; the lack of oxygen made Knuckles feel dizzy and he found it more and more difficult to glide stably in spite of the shivers and his tunnelling vision.

He couldn't tell how long it lasted until the icy winds ceased, finding he had not only lost track of time completely, but also no longer the slightest idea where he was. For now, it seemed his mind lacked the capacity to deal with matters that were currently as unimportant anyway; it was busy processing the fact his glide angle had decreased to what he was used to and he was relieved that the increasing air density didn't only prove to carry his weight smoothly, but also filled his craving lungs with sweet oxygen and allowed for an amount of summery warmth.

The look down showed a giant city, not really what Knuckles was fond of being in, but the sight had never been so pleasing. He'd never thought he'd be so glad to reach Mobius' surface. Choosing an exposed rooftop as the first landing place available, Knuckles dropped down onto concrete, holding himself on his hands and knees for a few seconds before rolling over to flop onto his back.

The echidna barely grimaced at a new painful twinge from his arm, the rest of him was so sore anyway it didn't matter much. He had never thought of gliding being so straining, but then again, he'd never ever glided so far and long.

Knuckles took his time until the warm beams of the sun had driven all the cold out of his body and relaxed his cramped muscles before slowly sitting up and taking a look around. He was alone on the flat roof of an apparently tall building. Even without standing up, he had a good look around from up here.

The city went as far as he could see, huge buildings everywhere, and between them oversized pinball tables and giant neon lights. Knuckles raised a brow. He'd been here before. Casino Park, but it looked strange during the daylight hours with the colourful signs everywhere around the place getting almost unnoticeable due to the bright sunlight.

Deciding he really didn't feel up for another glide, Knuckles moved to stand up and go find a stairway, after all, there had to be a way for people not capable of natural flight or gliding to get down from here.

He wouldn't have noticed the small object falling to the ground if it hadn't been for the tingling noise it gave at meeting the hard floor. Knuckles blinked and turned around, after a second of letting his eyes roam about spotting the pendant he'd snatched from the robot back up on the island. Kneeling down, the red echidna picked it up and laid it into his palm to examine it, now that he had some time.

It was a golden chain attached to a sort of coin, not very big, maybe about half of his thumb's length in diameter. Running his thumb's tip over the small medallion, Knuckles brushed off some of the dirt clinging to it, enough at least to see the coin itself was made of gold too. In the middle of the small round plate, a halfmoon-shaped white crystal with the tips of the form pointing upwards had been embedded into the metal, above it a tiny, brilliant formed jewel added to it.

From everything Knuckles could tell, it was a precious piece of artwork; the gold frame around the tiny gems absolutely flawless, and the chain felt smooth under his touch regardless of the dirt that still stained it.

In simple admiration for the handiness of the person that had designed this piece of adornment long ago, Knuckles turned the coin around to take a look at the backside. After freeing it of some of the mud, he frowned at the sight of thin carvings. It took a good amount of rubbing and brushing over it until he had cleaned it enough to recognize a small group of symbols, so small he needed to bring the pendant close to his eyes to be able to read the old echidnian hieroglyphs, and when he did, he stared down on the lettering in utter confusion, his whisper repeating the single word so quiet the wind brushed it from his lips in near silence.

" _Guardian_."


	4. Casino

Skidding to a stop in front of two big, wide open doors, Sonic turned around to allow Tails to catch up with him. Only seconds later the young fox touched down aside of the hedgehog.

"I win," Sonic noticed with a broad grin.

"As usually," Tails shrugged, not seeming to mind much. "I wonder why I keep racing you in the first place."

Rubbing his nose, Sonic looked down on him. "Well, just walking all the way from the airport would be much less fun, don'tcha think?"

Now Tails grinned too. "I guess so. This place just doesn't have enough shortcuts for flying."

"So, where do you wanna send your complaint, little bro?" Sonic smirked.

"Dunno. We could ask that guy over there." The two tailed fox pointed at a rabbit standing just behind the entrance to the casino they stood in front of.

"I don't think he's responsible for the architecture around here." Sonic shrugged. "Let's get in."

Tails nodded and followed the hedgehog as Sonic advanced through the broad doors.

However the two friends didn't get far as the black suited rabbit stretched out his arm blocking the hedgehog's stride. "Entrance only for adults," he said flatly.

Sonic arched an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Last time that didn't matter."

"Last time is not now. I don't know who was here 'last time', but I am on duty now, and the rules say no children into the casino. Gambling is not for kids." The rabbit pulled his arm back to cross it with the other one.

"I am not a little kid that needs to be protected from the evil gambling machines, you know?" Sonic's arms folded on his chest as if to adapt the rabbit's gesture.

"I know who you are, but saving the world doesn't make you any more suited to get in here." The rabbit gave Sonic a stern look. "Go spend your time at a teenagers' club or something. I don't have the time to deal with immature freaks like you two."

Eyebrows still raised, Sonic turned to Tails. "What did he just call us, little bro?"

"It wasn't nice at least, Sonic." Tails frowned. "You know, Sir, you could at least be friendly with people."

"I'm friendly with clients, and you aren't clients so I can be with you as I please." The clerk shrugged.

"Come on, Sonic, let's go somewhere else…" Tails was already starting to turn away when he saw Sonic shaking his head.

"No." The hedgehog turned back to the rabbit with a glare on his normally smiling face. "I'll tell you something. I spend a good amount of my lifetime chasing after Eggman to save people's butts, yours and your casino included. None of the adults you seem to like so much more than us came to help me and my friends, instead you all nicely kick back and watch us being shot and thrown bombs at, and afterwards you say 'Nice job, kiddo, now go back playing'. I play where I want. And right now, I wanna play in there 'cause it looks like a lot of fun. If you're a better take than Eggman's bots, give it a try and stop us. Come on, Tails."

Tails nodded hurriedly as the hedgehog pushed past the clerk and casually started to walk along the red carpet on the floor. Tails looked up at the rabbit with a small frown. "You managed something not many people do. You pissed off Sonic." Stepping past the surprisingly still man, Tails started to follow his older friend, but then turned around again. "Oh, before I forget. Tell your boss this place got horrible flying shortcuts."

* * *

"I didn't think we'd get another job so fast," Charmy exclaimed happily, continuously flying around the rest of Team Chaotix.

"Yeah, we were actually lucky this time," Vector noticed, snatching the hyperactive child out of the air. "Stop doing that."

Kneeling on the ground, fingers tracing the already eroded prints left in between Vanilla's flowers, Espio looked up just briefly, completely ignoring the byplay. "And it's a proper one, too. So stop messing around and help. We need to save all the clues we can get."

"Roger that!", Charmy shouted exitedly, dashing around the corner of the rabbit family's small house as soon as Vector released him. "I'm gonna find'em first!"

Taking a slow breath, Espio shook his head. "Fine." Changing the topic, he pointed Vector at the traces he'd found. "What do you say?"

The crocodile leaned down as well, closely regarding the ground. "Not a normal footprint," he said. "One small pointed part and a broader one. Either Misses Vanilla got a woman in high-heels trampling down her roses…"

"… or it was a robot," Espio finished.

"What is the more sensible thing," the green reptile noticed standing back up.

"Taking into account how the door was split in half and thrown out of the hinges, the thief must have been very strong," the chameleon continued, slowly walking around the house while he spoke. "A robot would easily master that strength."

"Possibly the real thief was afraid to carry out his deed himself," Vector speculated. "Or he couldn't do it."

"His or her motivation is a mystery to me, anyway. Who breaks into a house while the owners are on holiday, has all the time in the world to get out everything of value… and all that's taken is two old pieces of decoration?" Espio scratched his head.

"Perhaps the thief was interrupted," Vector suggested. "Someone might have come by and seen him… Although, then this person would have called the police…"

"I think –" Espio didn't get to state what he was thinking when Charmy burst around the corner and almost collided with him.

"You gotta see this!", the young bee shouted, almost breathless with excitement. "The thief made a fire in the garden behind the house!"

Exchanging a look of surprise, the two older detectives followed Charmy's lead, past the veranda and a swing for Cream on a brightly green meadow, over to a hedge and a line of bushes that surrounded the garden.

Stopping between two round bushes, Charmy pointed onto the ground beneath himself. "See?"

Espio tilted his head, staring down onto the grass. It was slightly longer here, but just where Charmy pointed the grass blades were missing. Instead, the Chaotix looked at two palm-sized, round, black marks. "Something… burned the grass…", the chameleon muttered.

"I told you!" Charmy folded his arms, visibly proud about himself. "The thief burned it!"

"Why should he do that?" Vector frowned. "Why here? What did he burn? If he was to destroy traces of what he'd done here, the house would have been a better choice. What's so special about this spot?" He looked around.

Espio shook his head. "There is nothing special about it. I see two possible explanations: First… These burned spots have nothing to do with the case at all. Second… we thought of a robot. And this," he pointed at the grass, "makes me think of a jetpack."

Vector looked between his friend and the ground. "You have a point there. What directly leads us to another question… The only person I can think of that uses robots… is Dr. Eggman."

"Eggman's always the bad guy!", Charmy commented. "And he still owes us the money for saving him…"

"Even if we're right, and Eggman is behind all this…" Espio frowned thoughtfully. "What does he want Vanilla's old plate and vase for?"

"Umm…" Charmy scratched his head. "Build a giant killer robot and conquer the world?"

* * *

Slowly wandering along the streets, Knuckles didn't spend any more thoughts on the pendant that now lay on his chest since the echidna had decided to wear the bracelet the way it was designed to be carried around. He had stopped trying to find out if the thing had anything to do with him, with his duty as the Emerald's guardian, if it maybe had been worn by another guardian in the past, long before he existed, or if it had been owned by someone guarding something other than the Master Emerald. A place maybe, or some treasure… or something else.

The question what Eggman wanted with it, and the things he'd taken from the Floating Island, had of course sprung to mind now that he had some more idle time. Not that Knuckles had found any answers to it. Neither had the echidna's musing turned up anything else of use; no ideas how Eggman had known there was stuff to dig out while Knuckles – who had spent his complete life on Angel Island – had not even considered there was even stuff to find. Just like some times before, Eggman seemed to know more than he did. As long as Eggman's more of knowledge concerned robots and similar things, the echidna could have hardly cared less, but if things concerned his island, relics from his ancestors, or maybe also the Master Emerald… then Knuckles was very much concerned.

All these thoughts that had played over and over in Knuckles' mind at the beginning of his trip had somehow greatly toned down during his walk. The city was large, and even though the echidna had been there before he had to admit to himself he was getting lost in it. At night times it looked very different than it did now, there were signs up you could use for orientation during the nightly hours in the giant casino, and there had been more people around. If it wouldn't be for the faint music playing in some of the clubs, you could believe the city was deserted at this hour.

He briefly considered entering one of the casinos that was already open, but a short glance through the doors clued him that inside a giant room filled with slot machines and behind it a giant pinball machine waited for gamblers; and that it was loud, with more people than he liked and with far too many brightly blinking lights in there. At least not deserted anyway, but Knuckles doubted any of the guys would be able to help him. He wasn't even sure what to ask for. He needed to find Eggman, but as much as Knuckles hated the idea by now the robots and their creator could be anywhere. How could he ask for the way if he didn't know where he wanted to go?

So he just kept strolling down the street he was on. Unfortunately for Knuckles, it soon turned out to be a dead end, but on second look that could have been worse. The square the echidna found himself on was surrounded by benches and palm trees in giant pots – the palm trees, not the benches of course. The square's center held a small fountain that let clear water sputter out of a thing that looked like a rather dumb kind of fish to Knuckles. Out of the large mouth as well as several holes across the sculpture's body thin jets of water rained into a round pool.

Knuckles shrugged and stepped up to the pool's edge. Glancing around for any signs if this was prohibited and finding none, the echidna dropped down on the rim around the pool, reaching with both hands into the water. It was amazingly refreshing, and after quenching his thirst, Knuckles also washed the remains of his fights with the robots and the fall afterwards off himself, and the dirt off the medallion. It looked even shinier now, Knuckles noticed warily. He would have to watch out for it in this strange city.

The echidna was still studying the small piece of jewellery for anything he might have overseen before when his ears picked up a sound and caused him to look over his shoulder. His fingers released the pendant and it dropped onto his chest as he span around. Behind him, the street had filled with robots. Slightly humanoid machines with a roundish torso, their armor painted in bright pink, red and green shades as was usual for the bots in this zone. The pink ones even possessed bunny ears... Knuckles had always thought it looked totally ridiculous. What had Eggman smoked when he created the things?

To Knuckles' dismay the robots didn't plan just standing around looking stupid. In spite of their clumsy and bizzare appearance, their red robot eyes were fixed on him with a glooming stare. They were here for him. Knuckles's eyes traced over the group, trying to judge where to attack best, but the robots were quicker. Mouthing a yelp as guns were raised and fire was opened at him, the echidna dived for cover into the only possible direction.

Into the small pool.

* * *

The world was spinning. Curled into a tight ball he couldn't see the blinking lights any more, but he felt the light tickles of electricity when he touched the walls and he heard the sounds the pinball table gave out everytime his score was boosted to a new high. Nothing like a novice to spindashing, Sonic sped up his rolling, hit a ramp and was catapulted upwards. Uncurling briefly in mid-air to orientate himself, the hedgehog set direction and homed in on the oversized slot machine in the middle of the board. For several seconds he was caught in blackness before being released and feeling a piece of the flipper scrape by his spines, but failing to truly change his direction.

A slightly dissonant chime was played as the blue hedgehog dropped into a large box full of pillows that softened his landing. Crawling out of it and tumbling over to the group of people gathered around the controls, Sonic had to admit he was slightly dizzy by now.

He was welcomed by Tails, pointing proudly at their newly set up highscore. "Hey Sonic! That's a new record!"

The hedgehog grinned. "Yeah, we're good, aren't we?"

"You sure are." The rabbit responsible for the pinball event nodded smiling. "Do you want another round? You're attracting quite a crowd…"

Sonic's green eyes roamed the faces of the admittedly rather big group of people lined up to watch them. He shook his head. "No thanks. I'm gonna get sick if Tails keeps bouncing me around like that…" The fox shot his brother a look of reproach. Sonic grinned. "No, you were great, Tails. Come on, let's get our prize and then go find some snacks, huh?"

Tails nodded and happily twirled his namesakes. "Yup!"

Hopping down the stage they stood on and working their way through the crowd, the two friends reached the exit and were handed a check. Sonic eyed it while they walked out. "That's more than a pair of new runners. We can get you some nice stuff to pimp up the Tornado as well, I guess."

Tails smiled. "That's great. I think if I can get the battle mode changed a little and increase wing sweepback, I can get her a lot faster…"

Sonic grinned and patted the fox' back. "I'm sure you can. And then we're gonna race."

"'Course!" Tails beamed. "But first we could head back the way we came, I guess we passed by a burger shop somewhere and –" The fox was interrupted by the sounds of machine gun fire not too far away.

"What the –", Sonic started only to find himself cut off by a loud metallic crash.

The two friends exchanged glances. Tails frowned. "Sounds like trouble."

Sonic folded the check and slipped it into his sock for safekeeping. "You say it."

* * *

"Okay, Cream, we gotta be really quiet now," Amy whispered.

Nodding seriously, the little rabbit followed her friend. Slowly and cautiously, the two girls crept up to one of the windows. Glimpsing over the window sill, they could get a look into the Chaotix' office.

Vector was pacing the room. "… no other solution at the moment but believe Eggman to be the thief," the crocodile said.

"All clues lead to him," Espio agreed, sitting on the sofa in a lotus position.

Cream's little fingers poked Amy's side. "Did he say Eggman?"

The pink hedgehog nodded. "I heard it, too."

"Doctor Eggman does a lot of bad things… but why would he steal Mum's decoration?" Cream's big, brown eyes looked doubtful.

"I don't know, Cream." Amy shrugged. "We'll just have to find out. That's what detectives do, you know?"

The little rabbit nodded, and both girls returned to look inside, hoping to eavesdrop on something else important.

"Did you find out anything on Eggman's current activities?", Vector just asked.

Espio nodded. "His robots have been seen at several places during the past days. I found reports of Eggman machines having been sighted in Mystic Ruins and Emerald Hill. They were spotted digging and roaming some old ruins."

"Old ruins? Aren't they scared of the ghosts?", Charmy Bee threw in, hopping up and down on the sofa next to Espio.

The chameleon shook his head. "Robots can't be scared of anything. Will you sit still, Charmy?"

Moping, the bee fell quiet for a brief moment. "Can we go see some ghosts then?"

Espio looked up to the team's leader. "Are we going to investigate Eggman's activities?"

The crocodile nodded. "Yes. We have to. If he has stolen Misses Vanilla's properties, he'll keep them most likely in his base. Our priority for now is locating it," he decided.

"Emerald Hill isn't far from here. I suggest we begin there." Espio stood up.

"Are we gonna smash some robots? Please!" Charmy beat his wings, flying after the chameleon.

"We probably have to, anyway. But we should try to stay unnoticed first," Espio explained, heading for the door. The two other detectives followed, leaving Amy and Cream to duck behind a few containers as they walked past.

"Now what are we gonna do, Amy?", the bunny wondered, nearly shivering with excitement. "Are we gonna investigate, too?"

Amy nodded. "Of course. But we have to be really careful so they won't see us, alright?"

"Alright!" Cream smiled, giving Amy a thumbs-up.

The hedgehog smiled too as she lead her younger friend after the Chaotix. Playing detectives was certainly fun; and it helped her not to think too much about other stuff.

* * *

Launching himself out of the not more than knee-deep water, Knuckles reached out with both hands and snatched firmly around the forearms of the robot standing directly in front of him. Lifting up the machine in spite of it being almost two times as tall as he was and at least 5 times heavier, Knuckles flung it over his head and released his grip again. Sent flying the Egg Pawn crashed against the ugly fish statue which in consequence lost a fin.

A quick jump brought the red echidna over the rim of the pool and into the midst of more robots. Knuckles lurched forwards, swinging his right arm around, thus adding a slight spin around his vertical to the motion and used the momentum of the jump to drive the punch of his fist even harder against the closest machine's chest armor. The small conic spikes on his namesakes stuck in the metal, the echidna leaned backwards for stability and spun around again, the damaged robots torso making unhealthy contact with two of the others that collapsed backwards. Shaking and unclenching his fist Knuckles' only half voluntary hold on 'his' robot was loosened and the red armoured machine hurtled through the air before colliding with one of the palm trees, toppling it over and hitting another robot.

The smirk on Knuckles' face lasted but a second – until two of the farther away robots had gotten the idea the advantage in close combat was Knuckles', and the use of their guns was increasing their chances to harm him while not getting damaged themselves. With a growl of both anger and surprise Knuckles dived for cover again behind the small wall around the pool.

Peering over it carefully and watching the bullets smashing against the apparently not very durably constructed and now crumbling fish fountain thingy, the echidna found to his annoyance the six remaining robots were starting to round the pool. There was nowhere he could have run to behind, and the shelter a round and not very high wall could offer wasn't that amazing either. His current situation was at least to be classified as 'suboptimal'.

Knuckles had just chosen to try his luck and jump the nearest robot to his left – a modified version of the regular Egg Pawns he'd seen in Casino Park before, purple colored with bunny ears, a design he'd always wondered what Eggman had taken when coming up with it – just because this one looked the silliest, but stopped before having even started to carry out his plan when something smashed into the back of the robot at the other side of the fountain pool. Finally ceasing to unleash its wrath on the helpless statue, the robot crumbled in a heap.

A streak of blue dashed from the fallen machine to its direct neighbour, the quick blurry shape revealing itself to be a spiky ball of royal blue that now bounded down onto another bunny robot with the force of a striking comet.

Casually rising to his feet from the wreckage, the blue hedgehog cockily folded his arms without showing any sign the five heavily armed robots still standing could be of any danger to him. Head slightly tipped aside the teenager eyed the sizzling and smoking pile of electronic waste to his feet. "You were one ugly piece of junkbot anyway," he said, and though Sonic still stood with his back to Knuckles, the echidna knew there was a grin on his face.

A soft whirring noise announced yet another newcomer. Gently descending towards the hedgehog, Tails shouted down to him. "Hey, you started without me!"

"Ya could have been faster, you know? I had to make sure they don't run off!"

Tails had almost reached ground level and was about to reply, but obviously the flying fox had let down his guard a little too much and the bot closest to him took advantage of it by hopping up and punching out at him. Though the move itself looked awkward and clumsy, the robot's left arm connected with the side of Tails' head. With a shriek of pain the fox dropped to the ground, curled up and clutched his head.

Casualty wiped away within less than a second, Sonic turned to the robot. Now that he was finally able to see the hedgehog's face, Knuckles watched with slight surprise how Sonic's eyes narrowed and the green in them suddenly seemed much darker than the usual shade of emerald, and when he spoke there was a growling undertone in it. Honestly Knuckles' hadn't expected him to say anything at all and directly get over to tearing the bots to bits.

"You interrupt our day off, attack random people, and now you hurt my little brother. What do you think I'll do with you now?" Whether the hedgehog had truly meant the robot to process the question or not would most likely stay his secret forever, he didn't really give it time to react at least. One second he'd been standing straight and still, the next he was gone, the image of blue hedgehog replaced by a disruptive blur crashing into the four robots in front of him.

His eyes catching a glimpse of movement from his right, Knuckles spotted the purple bunny-eared robot turn towards the hedgehog too, once more raising its gun. Although this kind of projectiles usually didn't mean much of a threat for Sonic given his speed, the echidna decided it wasn't his style just standing and watching Sonic do all the work. While he jumped the robot and planted a hard punch against its head, the echidna couldn't really help a strange feeling of familiarity to get to him. It happened quite often the blue hedgehog needed someone to watch his back, as he wasn't the most thoughtful one in battle; and if he was around, there was some kind of silent agreement on this being Knuckles' job.

At the same time reaching the spot where Tails still formed a ball of orange fur on the ground, Knuckles and Sonic exchanged just a brief glance before turning their attention to the little two-tailed fox.

Their worries receded when Tails opened his blue eyes as Sonic picked him up gently and pulled his hands away from his head. "You alright, big guy?"

The kid gave a small nod. "I think so. It just hurt a lot…"

Finishing looking over Tails' head, Sonic smiled at his adopted little brother. "It's just a bump now. Be more careful next time, okay?"

Tails nodded again and Sonic helped him to his feet.

"If you still want to fight we'll have to find some fresh bots I guess…", the blue hedgehog noticed pointing around.

"No thanks." Tails shook his head before turning to the red echidna. "Hi Knuckles!"

"Hello Tails. Sonic." Knuckles nodded at both of them.

The hedgehog grinned. "Long time no see. Want a burger? We were just out to get some snacks when we heard you being so noisy with these guys here."

Knuckles shrugged. Sonic and Tails knew a lot more about the surface ways than he did, so maybe staying with them for a while was the easiest way through here. "Fine, why not?"


	5. The Egghunt Begins

The grassy hills lay in bright sunlight, basking in what surely had been this zone's namesake. Like in many other zones on Mobius, here and there an eroded wall or a pillar of a half fallen building would tell of the many ancient civilizations that had once crowded the planet. Most of them had been forgotten by history.

Now, centuries later, a group of three crept up behind one of the aged walls, secretly watching the activities between the few pieces of ruins spread across the field.

Espio narrowed his eyes, not much a sign of emotion but thought. "The rumors were right. The place is full of Eggman's robots."

"What are they doing?", Vector wondered, following the straight patterns of movement that led the machines marching between the remains of old architecture.

Charmy tilted his head in childish thoughtfulness. "They're playin' hide'n'seek!", he announced then, looking proud.

Vector shook his head. "I don't –"

"He might not be so wrong," Espio cut in. "From all I can tell they follow a search pattern."

"I am right?" Charmy beamed. "YAY!"

"From just watching them there's no way for us telling what they were ordered to search," the chameleon continued. "Unless they find it."

"If they do," Vector continued," chances are good they'll bring that whatever it is to Eggman, or he'll come by himself to look at it."

Espio nodded fiercely. "And this is our chance to get him."

* * *

Only a hundred meters from Team Chaotix' position, another three-headed group was crawling towards the robots. A small gathering of bushes and thick shrubbery allowed Amy, Cream and Cheese to get almost closer to the prospecting machines than the others. From atop a steep hill, the girls and their chao curiously watched the robots.

"What do you think, Amy?" Cream had grabbed a hold of Cheese to avoid that the chao could fly away.

"I think –" The hedgehog girl stopped, her nose suddenly itching and her eyes starting to water. "I – ah- ahh –"

"Amy, no!" Cream clasped a hand in front of her mouth.

"Aaachoo!" The forceful sneeze throwing her off balance, Amy tumbled out of their shelter and down the hill's slope, landing little gracefully a couple meters lower and sneezing again. "Achoo!"

"Amy!" Cream hurried after her older friend.

Just when she reached Amy's side, the two girls found the pink hedgehog's little episode had not been unnoticed. The robots, until then busily walking around, had all turned towards them, red eyes glowing cataclysmically.

"Oh oh…" Cream took a step backwards. "I don't like this…"

"Don't worry, Cream." Amy stood up, dusting herself off and drawing her magic hammer. "I got it!"

* * *

Knuckles suspiciously poked his fork into the thing sold to him as 'fish'. It didn't quite look like fish to him though… and it didn't smell much like fish either.

The echidna's studies on surface eating habits were interrupted when Sonic elbowed him from the right. "Come on, you could at least admit you're happy to see us," the hedgehog smirked.

For a moment Knuckles kept his frown, but then his facial muscles decided to replace it with a smile without any of his doing. "Yeah, okay, I kinda like seeing you guys. Happy now, hedgehog?"

"Yup." Sonic nodded and turned back to the plate in front of him. Not much of a surprise here - it contained a pile of chilidogs. For a moment watching the blue hedgehog delightfully digging his teeth into his strange favourite snack, Knuckles shook his head and turned to Tails.

Having some more table manners than Sonic, the fox was using his fork to stuff his face with chips. Looking at Knuckles sitting across of him at the small table in the burger shop, Tails frowned slightly. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Not much," Knuckles insisted, once more studying his food and settling to take a sip of the water in his glass instead. Once he put it down again, his deceitful stomach chose to make him a liar and growled clearly audible.

Sonic looked up from his own food again and reached for his glass of Chaos Cola. "Ah, you're not? Well, your belly is."

Knuckles regarded his plate thoughtfully. "Are you sure this is fish? And what are these green leaves? Decoration or can one eat them too?"

Sonic almost choked on his coke, held both hands over his mouth to keep from spitting while struggling to swallow, breathe and laugh at the same time. Knuckles shot him a death glare.

"The green leaves are salad, Knuckles. Not like fruit salad, just, you know, _salad_ ," Tails explained, not showing if he found the situation as funny as Sonic. "They're said to be healthy. And, yes, this is fish. It's baked, so it looks different than the fish you eat on your island because of the breading. It'll also taste different because they use special spices for it."

"Thanks, Tails." Knuckles nodded at the young fox, sending another glare at Sonic who had dropped backwards on his chair and was desperately gasping for air, then dug his fork into the fish again and tried it. It tasted strange to him, like most of the surface food did, but not bad either. And once the first bite had travelled down his throat he found himself overwhelmed by hunger anyway and didn't stop eating until nothing was left.

"I assume it wasn't too bad after all," Sonic teased with a grin. Knuckles just grunted, but wasn't forced to explain himself further on that matter when Sonic proved once more he could change topics of conversation as suddenly as his condition of movement. "What are ya doin' here anyway? I never thought you'd like Casino Park much… and it's not like you to just hop off your island to take a trip to the city."

"I didn't 'hop off', hedgehog," Knuckles snapped. "I fell while in pursuit of robot thieves and ended up here on accident."

"Robot thieves? The one's you were fighting when we met you?", Tails asked curiously.

Knuckles shook his head. "No, I just ran into them here. There were some others on my island. They were… digging."

Sonic raised a brow. "Digging? Like… with a shovel?"

"With lasers," the echidna corrected.

Tails tilted his head. "In some of your ruins?"

"No," Knuckles shook his head. "In the hills."

"And?" Sonic shifted his half-full glass of Chaos Cola in his hands. "Did they find something?"

Knuckles nodded. "Yes, a wooden box… some things that looked like artwork… but they took them too fast for me to really look. They took flight and while trying to stop them I tripped over the edge of the island too and then couldn't get up." He paused briefly and reached for the pendant resting on his chest. "I only managed to grab this." Opening the chain, he put the medallion on the table.

Sonic curiously reached for it. "Hey, is that a picture of the Master Emerald?" He pointed at the green jewel adorning the front side.

The red echidna merely shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I see the resemblance, too."

"Let me see," Tails demanded and snatched the piece of jewellery from Sonic's grip. Just briefly studying the front, the fox turned it around and a frown grew on his brow. "There's some hieroglyphs on it," he noticed.

Knuckles nodded. "Yes, it means 'guardian'."

Sonic's pointy ears tipped fully upright. "Like in 'Guardian of the Master Emerald'?"

"I don't know, just 'guardian'." Knuckles shrugged again. "But the thought occurred to me too, because of the Emerald looking thing on the other side."

Tails was still spinning the medallion around in his hands. "You've never seen it before?"

Knuckles shook his head. "No, but it seemed to have been buried for a couple years. I'm not the first guardian, before I was born as… well, the last echidna, there were more of my kind living on the Floating Island. There must have been a social system. There are no recordings on my people's history after Chaos' rampage and Pachacamac's defeat, but the fact that I exist thousands of years later proves there still were echidnas on Angel Island."

Tails nodded. "Anything else doesn't make sense if we don't want to think of you having travelled here from the past or something."

"Even if I have, that doesn't really change my point. In most societies there are symbols that show the single members position in the social system. Your police men wear uniforms that clue everybody else what they work as." Knuckles pointed towards the burger shop's counter. "The people working in this shop all wear these red caps."

"So, you think maybe during the times there were still more echidnas around, also the Emerald guardians wore some kind of sign?" Sonic regarded the pendant. "Sounds sensible to me."

"Maybe it was given to them when they were assigned as guardians," Tails guessed. "I could imagine there was some kind of ceremony."

"I think so," Knuckles agreed. "There is another point for that theory."

"What do you mean?", Sonic asked.

Knuckles' gaze dropped onto his chest and he lifted his right hand off the table to point at the white marking on his fur.

Tails' blue eyes went wide with awe. "It's a birthmark?"

The echidna nodded. "Yes. As far as I know from the old writings, every guardian used to have it." He reached for the medallion Tails still held and turned it back around, the tip of his thumb tracing along the half-moon shaped thing the miniature emerald rested on.

Still gaping, Tails' eyes quickly shifted between the piece of jewellery and Knuckles' marking. "You mean…?"

"I thought it was some kind of bowl the emerald is lying in," Sonic remarked, earning himself a strange look from his two friends. "What? It kinda looks like it!"

Deciding to ignore the hedgehog's input, Knuckles picked the medallion back up and put it around his neck again. "What kinda unsettles me is that Eggman knew where to send his robots to find this and the other things while I had no clue they were there."

"What you think he's up to this time? It's not Eggman's style collecting random relics to pimp up his house," Sonic noticed. "If Eggman's after something, he thinks you can use it for this world domination thing he's so fond of."

"I have no idea." Knuckles thoughtfully took a hold of his glass and watched the slight swirl of the water in it. "But I have to find out. I can't let Eggman get away with whatever he might be up to."

Sonic and Tails exchanged a glance and a nod. "You just hired yourself some company," the blue hedgehog announced. "We offer a plane, knowledge of the territory and five years of experience with Eggbreath' schemes. Interested?"

Knuckles smirked. "Hard to say no, isn't it?"

"Kinda, yeah." Sonic grinned, turning his head away from Knuckles to gaze at some point behind the echidna. When the hedgehog's green eyes remained fixed to the spot for another few seconds, Knuckles turned around as well.

"What's there?" There wasn't really anything interesting to see…

Sonic shrugged. "Nothing much." He pointed at the TV tucked into a cupboard in a corner. "Just another rerun of 'Chao in Space'." The blue hedgehog shook his head. "That's about the hundredth time I see it."

"I heard they're making another sequel," Tails put in.

"Like, 'Chao in Space 10'?" Sonic chuckled and turned back to his glass of Chaos Cola.

"I'm not sure if they reached 10 yet." Tails dropped his fork onto the empty plate.

For a moment Knuckles watched the small figures of chao walk back and forth on the screen, then he turned around as well. Like with their strange food, the TV was another surface dweller thing he'd never understand… "Are we going?"

Sonic put down the rest of his coke in one gulp and audibly placed his glass on the table. "Yup. Time to hunt an Eggman!"

* * *

Casually leaning against the Tornado's side, Sonic focussed his attention on Knuckles. The red echidna was looking around, eying the planes on the parking area. "So, now that we're here… Where do you wanna start looking for Eggman and your stuff?"

Knuckles shrugged, already opening his mouth to answer, but Tails interrupted him before he had the chance to say he had no idea.

"Sonic, Knuckles, look!" The two-tailed fox pointed at the sky behind his friends.

The other two spun around. "Hey, that thing looks like one of Eggman's huge flying things!", Knuckles remarked unnecessarily. "An Egg Carrier! What does it do?"

A grin darted over Sonic's face. "Well, I suppose it _carries eggs_ …"

Knuckles' head abruptly whirled to the hedgehog and he gave him a blank stare. "What?"

"Forget it." Sonic chuckled lightly, but then turned serious again. "But you're right; it is one of Eggman's flying fortress things. I'll definitively agree with you on that, Knux. Maybe it's his new mobile doomsday truck or something…" Sonic frowned, through narrowed eyes watching the large vessel's path across the blue sky. After a few secons, a smirk appeared on his face. "What do you think? I bet Knux' stolen treasure is up there."

"Just one way to find out, huh?" A small but fierce smile made it to the echidna's face.

Tails had already hopped into the Tornado's open cockpit. "Just one way to find out."

"You got it." Sonic swiftly leaped up to take on his favorite position on the Tornado's wing. Grinning in anticipation of a good chase, he turned to Knuckles who was about to settle himself in the rear seat. "You wouldn't have thought we get him so fast, would ya?"

Knuckles allowed himself only a small nod. "No, but I will share your enthusiasm once we got everything back from Eggman."

Sonic struck out his tongue. "Don't be so negative!"

Ignoring the others' bickering, Tails had taxied the biplane to the runway and now applied full thrust to his engines, causing Sonic to turn forwards and crouch on the wing taking a hold of the leading edge to avoid getting shaken off. It needed just a gentle motion of Tails' hand holding the control stick to bring the Tornado up in the air.

Levelling out after a steep climb, Tails' blue eyes fixed on the big shape Eggman's flying fortress formed in front of them. "Sonic, hold on tight, we need to get a little faster."

The hedgehog nodded. He knew the procedure. Tails' left hand pulled a big, blue lever backwards, a whirring and humming ran through the entire biplane and Sonic's grip on the wing fastened as the upper two wings tilted up and swept backwards while the lower ones moved down, making the normally parallel wings of the biplane form an X-shape. Sonic lowered his head and a smile crossed his face as Tails fired the additional thrusters in the Tornado's tail. The biplane responded with a jolt forwards and the wind delightfully caressed through Sonic's quills.

"Is it me or was the paint not the only thing you improved?" Sonic grinned over his shoulder.

Tails beamed. "You're right. We'll see what Eggman has soon; catching up with him won't be a problem!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With regard to Knuckles' being the last echidna, please note that this story is (like most of my stuff) set before Sonic Chronicles, so as far as everybody knows at this time he really is the last. Blame Bioware for not coming up with a sequel and ending the one game we have with an ending you can't really put anything behind without explaining how they got back at Eggman (and that would be a totally different story).


	6. The Eggman's Victory! ...?

Espio blinked in surprise as not far from their hideout a pink female hedgehog tumbled out of the bushes, rolled down the grass of a small hill, sneezing hard a second time. A moment later a small bunny followed, running up to her.

"That's Cream and Amy!", Vector noticed. "Just what are these two doing here?"

Espio frowned, standing up and pulling out his shuriken stars. "I don't know; right now they're about to get mutilated…"

"Uh, I'm not too sure about that," Charmy noticed, pointing at the pink hedgehog who had just launched herself at the first robots coming for her and sent one flying with her giant hammer.

Being occupied, she'd missed on the bot coming for her little friend, though. "Aaaahhhh! Amy!", Cream screamed, squeezing her chao and fearfully scrambling backwards.

Leaping over the wall in his way and throwing his sharp weapons at what stood around and looked like a robot on a killing spree, Espio ran over to the two girls; just distantly noticing his two colleagues following him. Cream stared up at him with wide open, still frightened eyes when the machine she'd just thought was going to eat or slaughter her dropped in a heap, the back of its head sizzling with small sparks where the shuriken star had embedded itself deeply into the metal casing.

"You –", she gasped.

"Stay with Vector," the chameleon interrupted the distressed bunny. His crocodile friend had just caught up with him, Charmy close on his tail. With a nod the tall green reptile acknowledged he'd stay with the kids; and Espio spun around to look what had happened to Amy.

Unlike Cream, she didn't need that much of rescuing it seemed; currently the hedgehog was right in middle of half a dozen robots, swinging her hammer at anything that entered her field of vision and looked robotic.

With a few swift jumps, throwing his weapons a more robots, Espio stood next to her.

And nearly got his own skull smashed in. An instinctively fast move aside brought him out of her reach again. "I'm on your side!"

She smiled sheepishly, seeming almost at ease in spite of their surroundings. "Sorry." Said it, and turned around to aim her weapon of choice at the next best machine.

The two of them had almost taken out everything robotic there was and were nearly ready to call it a victory, when Charmy screamed out. "Hey, leave him alone! Vector!"

Whirling around and following the little bee's outstretched arm, Espio found his crocodile friend caught in the force field of one of the golden floating robots, struggling effortlessly while being constantly turned head-over-heels. Unlike most other models this type of robot didn't really excel in any form of combat. Once it had trapped a victim, it quickly took flight. Literally.

Espio growled, leaving the last few bots behind for Amy to deal with alone as he raced after the retreating machine, through small forests and across green meadows. "Come back here!", he shouted.

The robot's head turned 180 degree without it stopping to move away from him. Its optics blinked briefly, as if to mock him, and it fired its boosters, lifting itself and its captive higher into the blue sky. Espio could only stare after it as the machine vanished from his sight. Head dropping in defeat, he leaned on his knees, out of breath.

He'd failed.

From behind him quick thuds announced the others catching up with him. Drawing a deep breath, the chameleon stood and turned around.

"Now what? Where is he?", Amy demanded impatiently.

"Gone. I wasn't fast enough." Admitting defeat was worse than defeat itself and Espio felt compelled to just use his species' special ability and disappear, at least from the others' sight if from the face of the planet wasn't quite possible.

"Well, we'll have to go and rescue him then," the pink hedgehog said, either missing on the chameleon's bad mood or ignoring it.

"You," Espio finally fully looked at her. "You take your little rabbit friend here and go home! You've caused enough trouble!"

"Hey, it's not my fault! I must have been allergic to one of these bushes," the hedgehog justified herself.

"I don't care whose fault all of this is," Espio gave back, needing all of his self-control to avoid snapping at her and lose what dignity he had left. "This is none of your business. Go home!"

Amy folded her arms. "No, sorry. They're going to take your friend to Eggman. And Eggman happens to be likely to have Cream's mum's stuff, too. And since we're after that stuff, we got the same goal."

Espio blinked. This was too much at once. "Wait, you're after what?"

"You heard right. Cream and me, we want to get the stolen things back, too," Amy said, smiling sweetly. "That's why we're here."

"If we work together we can help each other," Cream added in her usual soft tone, innocently looking up at him.

"See, we're all after the same thing. We gotta find Eggman's base, rescue Vector and take back what belongs to Cream and her mum. Like it or not, you're not gonna get rid of us anytime soon," the pink hedgehog noticed matter-of-factly.

Espio frowned, already opening his mouth to say something.

"I think they're cool," Charmy threw in, though sounding a little hesitant.

Sighing, the chameleon surrendered to his fate. He just didn't feel like putting up with anyone or anything right now. "Fine, you can come. But you do what I say, no running off on your own, no tricks, no nothing."

Amy giggled. "Of course, Mister. I think we make a great team. Eggman won't know what hit him and –"

"One more thing," the ninja cut her short. "Don't talk my ears off."

"You don't have any," Cream noticed shyly.

Espio groaned, while Amy and Charmy burst out laughing.

* * *

"Time until arriving over the calculated destination?"

"The ruins will be reached in 43 minutes and 12 seconds," the voice of his main computer replied calmly.

Robotnik knocked his fingertips onto the armrest of his chair in a gesture close to boredom. While his research had brought up a few vague facts on the acquired objects, the text on the stone plate proved to be a hard nut to crack. His decryption programs were still struggling with the translation. Though the language clearly was Echidnaen, it differed greatly from the kind of it Robotnik's archives knew from the writings that had clued him about the existence and power of the Chaos creature. Probably another dialect, and definitively younger. Post-Pachacamac echidnean language, if you wanted to call it something.

The few sentences already translated didn't help him much finding out where to search. Robotnik was sure about the importance of his current project, the echidna that had once written the texts spoke of 'the greatest things of all he had ever created' and 'a very powerful treasure'. Unfortunately nothing specific on what it was exactly, but coming from a people that harnessed the power to make landmasses float and control the power of the Chaos Emeralds long before true technology was invented, the object in question was certainly worth his time.

Wanting to avoid wasting any of this precious time, Robotnik had sent groups of robots to explore all hidden ruins of echidna cities or settlements all over Mobius. Considering this powerful object he was after had not been found so far, Robotnik thought his chances to be the best in the few temple complexes his infrared satellites had discovered from outer space in more remote areas. Right now he was about to visit an excavation in the tropical jungle.

Robotnik chuckled. This planet of ignorant pests should be grateful, if it wasn't for him, historically important locations like this one would remain undiscovered!

The scientist's thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of an alarm siren noisily announcing the end of routine operations. A notification marked as 'urgent' popped up on his main screen.

"WHAT? Enemies detected? Where?" Fumbling with his keyboard, quickly typed orders brought up a zoomed-in live image of the interruption's cause. Robotnik fumed. "Sonic! Prepare the rocket launchers! I want that blue pest and his friends blasted out of the sky!"

The robotic controllers of the ship's weapon systems obeyed immediately. Unfortunately Robotnik had to admit once again, the fox boy's piloting skills were much better than average. Swerving smoothly through the first wave of rockets in a daring chain of twists and loops, the small plane still gained on his fortress.

Robotnik forcefully smashed his finger down onto the button to confirm the next attack. It was almost as if he could feel the vessel shake as the rocket launchers released all at the same time. Hands fisting tightly and leaning closer to the screen, the human scientist impatiently waited for his next move to show effects.

The Tornado tumbled, barely missing two of the rockets to hit its wings and knock off that blue pest of a pincushion. Robotnik already opened his mouth for a victory cry, but Tails dived downwards suddenly and was out of the camera's reach. Close to start chewing his fingernails in suspense, Robotnik scanned all his screens for the biplane to reappear or for some of his sensors to declare a missile had hit home, but nothing happened.

Instead, his enemies' aircraft was suddenly back, and much to Robotnik's distaste it seemed the red echidna in the rear seat had leaned how to use that machine gun. The human cursed loudly, watching a large amount of his missiles vanish in small fireballs on the screen. He frowned, angrily glaring at the Tornado dancing through the fireworks.

But then a quick idea struck him and his face lit up, his fingers rushing over his keyboard accessing another file. "Yes! How could I forget about this one?" Robotnik laughed, exitedly zooming in on the biplane still quickly manoeuvring through his attacks and closer to his ship. A red circle enclosed the bluish flash of energy on the Tornado's tail. Something as a chaos powered afterburner. And a very hot one. A great target for a heat-seeking missile...

Grinning toothily, Robotnik started his rocket, then anxiously watched the highlighted marking on the biplane. It should reach the enemies' plane any second…

Tails slalomed through another set of regular missiles, but the Tornado's own fire had stopped. "Running out of ammo?" Robotnik's smile grew to an exited grin as he spotted his homing rocket in the left bottom corner of the screen. It raced forwards, sprightly locked on his enemies' tail without their knowning…

Robotnik jumped up when his best piece of weaponry almost collided with two of the smaller ones, sighed in relief when it made it through… and grinned again at the image one of his camera's caught of the biplane's crew. Sonic had turned backwards on the wing, pointing at the space behind the plane, screaming something that caused his fox friend to turn around as well. The fox' face was one of pure disbelief – and shock, a second before the rear of his plane vanished from Robotnik's sight in a ball of fire and a small black cloud. A trail of smoke following its wake, the Tornado began to fall, its straight course rapidly turning into a random spiral.

Now unable to restrain himself, Robotnik threw his arms up into the air at the sight of his three worst opponents going down. "Victory!"

* * *

"Whaa! We're hit!" Tails' high-pitched scream cut through the air like a blade. Knuckles' head snapped round just to helplessly watch the Tornado's tail crumble into several pieces.

"Tails! We're gonna crash!", Sonic shouted, his tone as close to panic as Knuckles had ever heard of him in a situation that didn't involve H2O.

Turning back around, Knuckles found the blue hedgehog crouching on the wing, his fingers tightly locked around the trailing edge, ears pressed against his head and green eyes wide with shock. Those eyes lit up with another spark of panic as Sonic stared at the space behind the echidna's seat. "Knux! Look out!"

Knuckles was sensible enough not to turn around at the next bang from behind, instead he ducked his head down, eyes still firmly fixed on Sonic. The hedgehog yelped again and tried to jump out of the way of a shower of wreckage while not falling off the wing. An attempt Knuckles could tell was damned to be futile.

Unable to move, the echidna stared and watched Sonic's head tilt to his shoulder as one of the pieces grazed along the side of his skull, the impulse of the hit spinning the hedgehog half around. For the fragment of an instant Sonic's eyes disbelievingly gazed into space, before rolling back as if in slow-motion, the wing sliding out of his grip, his body going limp and surrendering to the slipstream around the biplane.

It was reflex that let Knuckles' arm snap towards the falling lump, and briefly the echidna was sure he could reach and catch him, but then the seat belts forcefully pulled him back and the chance was over.

Mouth automatically opening for some sort of curse or growl or whatever, Knuckles tugged on the belts, but the words or just sounds he'd meant to let out caught dead in his throat as Tails in front of him screamed out again. The echidna felt his heart drop at turning back to Tails and the plane. Past the wings, he could glimpse the treetops of a jungle; a wide field of green in all possible shades. The Tornado's propeller pointed down into the green maze as though it meant to resemble an upside-down helicopter.

"I can't hold her!", Tails cried. "Without the elevator…" In his distress the fox swallowed the rest of his sentence, uselessly jerking on his controls without getting a response.

Having finally unstrapped himself, Knuckles understood anyway. He had no knowledge at all on aircraft, didn't understand why what happened did happen that way, but he knew one thing for sure: This plane wasn't going to fly anymore.

Tails knew it too, he also knew that his wings had stalled, that without the stabilizing tail whatever he tried wouldn't work, but he couldn't let go of the control stick. His fingers were glued to it, his mind fully knowing they were going to crash, but his body paralyzed and unable to do anything about it.

Knuckles' instincts were more practically orientated at the moment. Lashing out with one spiked fist, the echidna dug his namesakes into the plane's side to hold himself while his other hand gripped at Tails' seatbelts and just ripped them apart. Looping his arm around the young fox' torso, Knuckles jumped free, gravity gripping him and his load immediately.

Considering himself unable to glide while holding Tails with one arm, Knuckles did the only he thing he could think of while dropping towards the forest: He shook Tails as hard as he dared to without the risk of inflicting any damage. "Tails! Fly!"

The fox didn't move to follow his command. Tightly locking his hand around one of Tails' arms, Knuckles stretched out to try anyway and catch the air under his dread-locked spines. If it was the jolt as their fall slowed considerably or the sight of the treetops getting oh so close was unclear to Knuckles, but something knocked Tails out of his shock. His twin tails decided to spin and the young fox was finally hovering aside of the gliding echidna.

Knuckles released Tails' arm as he found his friend could support himself. Softly gliding one circle, the echidna directed Tails towards a broad river winding through the jungle. At its shore seemed the safest landing place, at least one that avoided them getting hit by branches or hooked up in a tangle of leaves.

Tails followed silently when Knuckles descended towards the grass at the embankment, and even though he had been flying stably, as soon as his feet touched the ground the fox dropped onto his rear. Knuckles landed aside of him, closely watching the fox boy. Tails was shivering; the big blue eyes staring at Knuckles still carrying the flickers of panic.

Crouching aside of him, Knuckles reached to pat Tails' shoulders, trying to calm him down. Had he seemed like frozen a second ago, now Tails jumped at him and quickly wrapped his arms around Knuckles' chest. The echidna gasped in embarrassed surprise at finding the little fox clinging to him, but then he realized the sniffles coming from him, the sound muffled by the fur of his shoulder.

Knuckles' arm slid around Tails' back before he knew he was doing it. Maybe it was simple instinct the echidna didn't know he had that let his hand softly run over the fur on Tails' back while holding the shaking form close to himself. He wanted to say something, something that would make Tails feel better, but his mind was blank, and whatever he thought of sounded ridiculous in their current situation. So he just knelt aside of Tails, listened to the racing beats of his own heart slowing after a while, then to Tails' sobs receding.

Pulling out of the unusual hug, Tails looked up at Knuckles, wiping the last tears from his eyes, and suddenly he seemed near as embarrassed as the echidna. "I'm sorry…"

Knuckles tried a smile in spite of himself. "Don't be, kid, it's okay."

Tails took a shaky breath, beginning to seem like himself again. "I didn't mean to behave like a little cry baby, really… Wait… Where's Sonic! ?"


	7. Hydrophobia

It was the impact and then the feeling of cool liquids crashing over him that woke him up. From his left temple, a rabid jackhammer was shooting waves of pain through his body, the intensity close to enough to let him black out again.

Sonic gasped, and the reflexive action instantly proved a big mistake as he found his mouth filling with water. The panic that came with a barely held down underwater coughing fit flooded his body with enough adrenaline to tone down the pain so much he could open his eyes. His panic increased another bit when finally the realization _where_ he was struck the hedgehog.

Fear. It came right with this realization, with the feeling of cold, wet liquids everywhere, flooding his nostrils, his ears, his mouth; and the water brought along Sonic's most dreadful enemy. The fear itself. Sometimes the hedgehog wasn't even sure if he was more afraid of the water or of his fear of it.

It was a powerful enemy indeed. A powerful enemy and his mightiest weapon combined in one. One that always resided in the back of his mind, dormant and waiting, a patient predator, just lurking to strike where and when he was the most vulnerable.

Each in their own way, both of them were lethal. The water because it suffocated him, cut off his air, his life; and the fear because it drowned him probably quicker than the water could and was just as suffocating. Cold and silent, like death.

Freezing tremors let every hair and quill on his body stand upright as they washed down his spine. Paralysing. The lack of oxygen was slowly, torturously draining his life from his body, every beat of his racing heart killing him a little more, and his mind was just as paralysed because it _knew_ what was happening.

Knew that he was caught. Knew that this knowledge, knew that this fear had for long strangled any other thoughts and feelings into blackout, until it was the only thing that remained. Sonic fought it anyway, like he had various times before, trying his best to hold on to that last piece of conscious thought he had left. It was a rule to survive. Don't lose it completely. If you did, you were done for.

Wildly struggling with his arms and legs, the hedgehog strained his eyes to look through the blurriness around, hoping to find out where up was in the greyish brown liquid surrounding him; but all his kicking and rowing didn't seem of use, the current was still carrying him past formless shapes of darker color that could be rocks or wood and his remote idea of up or down changed in a rush, ever and ever again.

Reflexively Sonic gripped a hard piece of stuff when colliding with it. He wrapped his arms around the thing as it turned out to be a rather large branch trapped in the rapids just like himself, but since he was clinging to it for dear life, Sonic's head finally found the opportunity to break through the waves. He was up long enough to spit out some of the water he'd swallowed and take one hasty gulp of air into his lungs, before another hard wave washed over his head, ducking him back into the muddy brew.

* * *

Knuckles wasn't exactly sure how long it was since they had decided to walk up the riverside. It was the only landmark around, everything else was giant trees and thick undergrowth, possibly hosting venomous snakes and other stuff. After a short discussion Knuckles and Tails had agreed that following the river was the best way not to get lost, and that if Sonic could he would most likely understand that too.

Tails had not yet given up on finding him, Knuckles himself wasn't too sure if he should believe in any chances. Sonic had been clearly injured when he'd fallen off the plane, and the fall itself into that mess of a jungle was more than prone to aggravate any injuries. But the echidna didn't want to allow himself to give up on the hedgehog, he just… it seemed so impossible to imagine Sonic could be… He didn't even dare to use the word for thinking, let alone phrase the thought aloud, especially with Tails around.

Although he had caught himself rather quickly, Knuckles hadn't forgotten Tails' breakdown just a few minutes ago. In fact, he was pretty aware of his own unsettled condition. It wasn't that you crashed with a plane everyday, and now that he had calmed down a little, a tiny voice in the back of his head was pestering the echidna, telling him over and over again heading out after Eggman had been on his goddamn account.

Tails' call pulled Knuckles out of his self-accusing ponderings. "Great chaos! Knuckles, look!"

Startled, Knuckles followed the direction of Tails' outstretched and slightly shaking arm. The river was making a large turn in front of them, the more distant part of it they could see stirred white while it rushed down a long series of rapids and small waterfalls, the part nearer to their position still a muddy brown and flowing slower as it followed its winding bed. Tails' fingertip pointed at the outer diameter of the turn where a broad sandbank had been formed, a halfmoon shape of dirty yellow in midst of the brownish water. The sandbank's color allowed the small form lying on it to prick out as a dot of royal blue.

"Sonic…"

As he muttered the hedgehog's name, Knuckles found Tails was already rushing towards him, twin tails spinning rapidly for extra speed. A second later Knuckles was running himself, catching up with Tails by the time the fox reached the sandbank. Sonic was lying up to his waist in the water, lazy waves slowly washing over his back; his belly and right cheek pressing into the sand, and the left side of his head stained red with blood.

Knuckles helped Tails pulling the blue hedgehog fully out of the water. Tails fell to his knees at his side, turning him around to his back. "Sonic! Sonic, are you okay? SONIC!"

No answer; and somehow Knuckles wondered if Tails really had expected one. The echidna knelt at Tails' side, looking down on the motionless blue hedgehog. Sonic's eyes were closed, his cheeks greyishly pale. Reaching for his wrist, Knuckles relaxed for just a second. "I got his pulse," he told Tails.

The fox leaned over Sonic's face, then shot upright again and turned to Knuckles, blue eyes open at their widest. "Knuckles, he's not breathing!"

The tiny bit of relief at finding the hedgehog instantly crumbled and Knuckles paled, his own heart racing in his chest again as the words sank in. Sonic wasn't breathing and the weak heartbeat Knuckles could feel on his wrist wouldn't last for long without oxygen. How long had he lacked air already? When had the river washed him ashore here, and how long had it played with him before? Two minutes? Three? Anything longer was unsurvivable as far as he knew…

"Knuckles!" Tails' shout pulled the echidna out of the short stun. "You gotta help me now. I need you to put your hand right here and press down, two times in five seconds." Even as Tails' voice seemed close to spin itself over, he appeared pretty sure about what to do.

And there was no time for thinking anyway. Knuckles nodded, with a subtle, strangely detached part of his mind noticing the absurdity of the situation. In a matter of seconds the roles had been reversed and Knuckles had totally missed on it. It was ridiculous. Him, guardian of the sacred Master Emerald and ever his own commander, blindly following the advice of an eight-year-old because he didn't know what to do at all but to say "Okay" and follow his advice. He placed his palm on the hedgehog's chest where Tails had pointed and leaned onto it, two times pressing down as hard as he dared. Breaking Sonic's ribs would certainly not improve matters.

While he mentally counted to five, he watched Tails holding Sonic's black nose close and lean over him, blowing the content of his own lungs into Sonic's. He sat up to breathe and repeated the procedure. Knuckles squeezed the hedgehog's chest again.

And another time. Nothing seemed to happen and with every wasted second passing, the little voice in the back of Knuckles' mind started to scream louder at him again. If Sonic drowned here, he was dying because he'd meant to do _him_ a favor. One of his maybe best… only friends was on the brink of death because of _him_. If Sonic died, it was _his_ fault. Knuckles grimaced. _Shut up..._

When Tails took another breath and looked up at him, Knuckles caught his gaze for just a second. The cerulean eyes glittered with a weird mixture of expressions, covering everything between the desperate look of a child and a very mature determination. He was scared. Terrified. But refrained from even thinking about giving up.

Knuckles gulped dryly. _Damn Sonic, you can't leave him alone…_ "Damn stupid hedgehog! Breathe, you idiot!", he shouted without really wanting to, but looking at Tails' distress just did it for him. He had fisted his hand without knowing he did it, just an outlet, and now it smashed down onto Sonic's stomach.

The hedgehog's body jerked and he gave a strangled cough. With a huffed sound of surprise Tails grabbed his shoulders and span him to his side, one arm across his chest, patting his back. Then he held the shaking hedgehog; a cruel coughing fit bringing more water out of his mouth and nostrils than Knuckles had thought would fit into _anyone_.

After a minute or so Sonic slowly stopped coughing and slumped powerlessly into Tails' grip on him, gasping in flat, quick, arrhythmic breaths. Tails cautiously turned him around again, half lifting him upright, and leaned the limp blue form against himself, resting the hedgehog's head against his shoulder.

Knuckles could do nothing but sit and stare as Tails moved close to Sonic's pointy ears, flattened tightly against his scalp, and started shushing him; his right arm around the shivering hedgehog's shoulders, his left hand slowly massaging his chest and stomach. For a moment Tails looked up at Knuckles again and the echidna caught another glimpse straight into the young fox' soul, flickering between a bit of relief and the most obvious concern.

Right now, as he sat beside his friends on the ground, Knuckles felt more foolish and useless than he had ever before, in any situation. _Do something sensible. Do something that helps,_ the harsh voice again demanded from the back of his mind. _Go. Help. Now!_ First, Knuckles couldn't think of anything, his mind numb and blank, but then he got an idea that seemed not completely stupid to him and he forced himself to his feet, his knees giving him a strange feeling of pudding. "I'll be right back, Tails," he said, then turned and ran.

* * *

Vector the Crocodile was sick. Nauseous. He really couldn't remember having ever been feeling as sick to his stomach as he was feeling now.

He was still trapped in the floating robot's force field, and for some reason he totally didn't understand you were constantly being spun around while inside this thing. The detective was starting to feel a not insignificant amount of pity for his socks when inside the washing machine.

Given the fact he was trying his best not to throw up, he paid little attention to the landscape that went by below the robot's path of flight. It wasn't that he could do anything about where it went… He was just starting to hope it would get there fast. Anything was better than being spun around like that…

Vector closed his eyes. Not looking at the world spinning around him made it slightly more bearable. Plus, he was tired. Would he even be able to sleep in this force field? He didn't know, but he'd probably try at some point. Anything better than witnessing much more spinning…

Just where were a flying little bee and a shuriken star wielding chameleon if you needed them?

* * *

It was cold. And wet _everywhere._ His head was still pounding with pain, and it was _WET._

The rasping sounds of his hasty breathing appeared to be coming from another world; one that had nothing to do with him really. Connected to him just through the stinging pain in his chest and stomach that peaked with every one of the shallow, rapid gulps for oxygen, lightly decreased for the tiny moment he let it out again, only to start over.

Sonic shivered, his quills ridging a little on his back as hedgehog instinct tried the one thing it – without any reason – thought or hoped could help, but his muscles wouldn't respond the urge to curl up. Neither for warmth, nor for safety.

"Shhhhhh…" Sonic felt his right ear twitch upright after lying folded against his head at the sudden, soft sound. "Shhhhht," it came again, now almost into his ear and the blue triangle turned as far as it could towards the tiny soothing noise.

"Shhh…" A soft and warm body shifted close to him, and Sonic could feel fingers drawing slow circles on his arm and softly rubbing the aching spot on his chest.

Unnoticed by him, his breathing had calmed a bit while he had been focused on the small sound, the pain not gone completely yet but gradually receding. Sonic slowly took a long breath, trying to get fully aware of the feeling of air flowing into his lungs and seeming to fill every corner of his body. There was no more water, no, there was wonderfully light air. Sonic let it out with a deep sigh, relaxing completely as he did.

"Right, relax. It's over," Tails' voice whispered into his ear. "It'll be okay…" And for a moment Sonic just believed him, taking slow breaths and enjoying every one as the evidence for being still alive.

Quick footsteps neared him, stopping right at his side. "How's he holding up?", Knuckles asked and Sonic almost winced at the tone in the echidna's voice. He'd never heard anything like _that_ in it before.

"I guess he's getting a little better," Tails answered, not stopping to calmingly pet him. "I'm not sure if he's awake though."

Something carefully nudged his arm. "Sonic? Do you hear us?" Knuckles sounded so abnormally nervous that just his question was enough to force Sonic's eyes open in spite of the massive headache. He found himself looking into the faces of his two friends; Tails was cradling him and Knuckles hunkering aside of them.

Tails' eyes started shining when he saw the hedgehog had opened his. "Sonic!"

A smile of a rarely seen kind lit Knuckles' unfamiliarly pale face. "Hey buddy."

Sonic wondered for a little moment that this was very likely the first time Knuckles had used that word and maybe it would stay the only one. Despite still feeling awful, he smiled back. "Hi –" He faltered and coughed when he tried to speak, took a second to catch his breath and tried again. "Thanks, guys. Looks like you saved my life."

Knuckles pointed at Tails. "He's the hero. I failed to catch you when you fell and after we found you out here… I don't think I would have gotten you back. He was doing all the work."

Tails vigorously shook his head. "No, I wasn't. I needed your help. All the time."

Sonic watched how Knuckles stared at Tails. "Can we compromise saying you saved me as a team?" He smiled wearily.

Knuckles blinked, but Tails grinned and lifted his left hand to hold it out at the echidna. "Sonic is right. Call it teamwork?"

Knuckles didn't hesitate before taking Tails' hand. "Okay. But shouldn't we talk about that later? I think there are more important things now than you or me." He turned his gaze down on Sonic again.

Tails nodded, also looking back at the hedgehog. "How are you feeling?"

"My chest and stomach hurt pretty badly, but breathing starts to feel nearly normal again," Sonic answered after a second of considering that 'awful' probably wasn't among the things they wanted to hear. "The worst thing is my head really." He lifted a hand to his aching temple, wincing when his fingers touched the sore spot. Pulling his hand away again, the hedgehog looked at it, finding crimson markings on his white glove. "Oww."

"Let me see," Knuckles commanded, leaning closer to examine the injury. Sonic hissed and bit his lip when the echidna used his glove to wipe it remotely clean. For a moment Knuckles studied the long gash still oozing blood.

"At least _you_ guys are okay, aren't you?", Sonic asked, out of concern for his friends as much as out of the simple need for a distraction from Knuckles probing an open wound.

Tails smiled. "Don't worry, we're fine. We lost the Tornado though…"

"How did you –" Sonic stopped and grimaced when Knuckles pressed a bundle of whitish material against the side of his skull.

"What's that stuff?", Tails asked, curiously looking at what the echidna had gotten them.

"It's some sort of bast. I've got something similar to it on the island, and right now it seems the only thing suited for bandages," Knuckles replied simply. "Sonic? Think you can sit so I can finish this?"

The blue hedgehog gave small nod. Tails carefully shoved him to a fully sitting position, worry flickering in his blue eyes when Sonic grimaced again at bracing his abdominals. "I'm good," the hedgehog quickly assured him in spite of not really feeling anything that came close to good at all. His head pounded angrily after the movement and the world was tilting and turning, slowly but sickening.

At least the sun was starting to dry his drenched fur while Knuckles wrapped some more of the bast around his head, even bringing a smile onto Sonic's face at cursing when he fumbled with the bandage between the hedgehog's large quills. Slowly Sonic pulled off his wet stuff to help the sun's work, and now his bare hand cautiously wandered over his stomach.

"It still hurts?", Tails questioned.

Sonic nodded, then regretted it as the movement increased his dizziness. "And I'm feelin' woozy," he admitted.

"Maybe you should lie down again. It could be a shock… or just the concussion," the fox said, watching Sonic stretch out on the sand, then he took a look at the hedgehog's hurting stomach. "This'll be _some_ black tomorrow," he remarked, looking over at Knuckles. "I said 'press', not 'crunch him'."

For a little moment embarrassment flashed on the echidna's features. "I'm sorry…"

Sonic laughed, not stopping even as it hurt. It felt too good to laugh to stop it. "Don't be. An aching belly's much better than having drowned. It's okay. Don't worry, I'll think of a way for revenge."

Knuckles threw him a stern look, but then smiled suddenly and looked back up at Tails. "He'll come through. He's already joking again."

Sonic grinned, flicking his ears. He still felt like he had some water in them. "What tells you that I was?"

"Can we discuss that later?", Tails interrupted, "I want to make sure you are okay. You're pretty pale."

"Possible." Sonic shrugged slightly. He looked up at the red echidna having reached for his arm to check his pulse. "I'm more wondering that _Knux_ is lacking some color."

Knuckles blinked bewildered. "I... am _what_?"

Tails tilted his head. "No surprise here, I'm sure I'd be if you could see it through my fur. You don't actually have to reanimate someone every day."

"No," the echidna nodded, everything about him full of that stiff formality Sonic knew was his main cover for any feelings he didn't want to display. "Not really. And I'm glad. I thought I…"

Sonic smiled softly. "I don't plan on repeating that either, believe me. But you were awesome, guys."

Knuckles sighed, looking away. "Maybe. But you wouldn't have almost died if I could hunt my enemies down myself."

Sonic gulped at the sound of guilt in Knuckles' voice. "You… don't really think that, do you? It was just a stupid accident."

"How can you take that so easy?", Knuckles wondered, irritation obvious, but at least he looked at him again.

Sonic shook his head. "You think I do? Damn no." He lifted his left hand from the ground and held it up at Knuckles. "See? I shiver just from thinking about it. Inwardly I shake everytime I see a river or lake or some other big amount of water, or worse have to cross it. But that doesn't damn change anything, so I just try to ignore it as good as I can."

Knuckles looked down on him, the irritation on his face sweeping into embarrassed astonishment. For a second Sonic found the notion funny that the echidna was the more embarrassed one if Sonic talked about his hydrophobia. Shouldn't he be the embarrassed one? Usually he was... but right now it felt so totally unimportant Sonic thought it was ridiculous he'd ever let it bother him. As far as he was concerned, he had all rights in the world to be terrified of water.

But looking at Knuckles feeling intimidated was amusing anyway. The echidna blinked, maybe just to stop staring at him, and the blue hedgehog was sure he was struggling to find a way to change the subject. Sonic smiled. "So, as our plane's down… how do we get outta here?"

Knuckles inclined his head at the hedgehog, a silent thanks Sonic acknowledged as silently, but the echidna could only shrug to the question. "I don't even know where we are," he admitted.

"Some kind of tropical jungle," Tails noticed unnecessarily.

"I've seen that," Sonic remarked, lifting his head off the sand to look around, but it made the headache worse again and he carefully eased back down. "What's the best way leaving it again? It's not really appearing a hospitable place to me right now."

"I guess before we think of a way to leave this jungle, we first have to find a place to spend the night," Knuckles noticed. "It's not even an hour to sunset, in the dark our chances to find a way out are even less than during the day, and all of us," he looked only at Sonic when he said that, "need some rest after what happened today."

Tails nodded, though he didn't seem overly fond of the idea of spending the night in the jungle. "You're right. We better find a place to camp."

For Sonic himself... Well, honestly he couldn't have cared less where they were.


	8. Stranded

Somehow during the night he had grown almost oblivious to the rushing noise of the river nearby. Knuckles knelt and inspected the remains of their fireplace. Though the night had been warm, Tails and him had taken turns keeping the flames alive; a fire was the best way to keep the jungle's animals away from their camp and neither of the group was too fond of a meeting with venomous snakes or something. There was enough trouble already as it was.

By now sure every bit of heat left wouldn't be enough to relight on its own later, Knuckles stood and turned around to his friends. Tails was nervously chewing a banana, seeming a little at a loss of what to do. Aside of the tad bit of insecurity you could easily see in the fox' features, he looked a little tired.

Sonic sat with his back leaning against the massive stem of a large jungle tree. Though being the only one they had skipped when it came to keeping a watch and therefore having been allowed a complete night of sleep, the hedgehog didn't look his best. His cheeks were pale underneath his light tan and he was still suffering from headaches and dizziness Knuckles blamed to equal parts on the blow to his head he'd taken and the loss of blood.

They had discussed already whether to stay here for another day in the hope he'd be better then or try and find a way out of the jungle immediately. In the end everybody had voted for the latter... Aside of the bananas they'd found there were no fruits any of them had ever seen so they would quickly run low on food if they didn't want to risk trying something that might not be edible, there were no resources around to properly treat Sonic's injury, and generally the jungle didn't seem safe staying in for a prolonged period of time.

"We still need to decide for a direction to take," the echidna noticed.

"To sensibly choose we need at least a vague idea where we are," Tails pointed out and Knuckles was secretly glad the little fox was back to making thought-out statements. Unlike yesterday. "If we start walking the wrong way we'll never get out of here!"

"If you keep going in one direction you always reach the end of something after a while," Sonic put in.

Knuckles looked down on his friends. "We just don't have time to take a week or two."

"Let's just think about this… we started pursuing Eggman at the south edge of Casino Park… and then I didn't pay attention anymore because he started shooting at us." Tails frowned thoughtfully.

"So, this place obviously is in the tropics, so we must have gone further south," Sonic continued.

"Just great." Knuckles sighed. _This totally isn't getting us anywhere..._

"Taking our main speed into account, we can't be far enough in the jungle that going straight south would get us anywhere," Tails said disregarding the echidna's comment and turning to the blue hedgehog. "Have you ever been around here on one of your runs, Sonic?"

"I've passed the jungles a few times, but never at a part that was as thick as this here." Sonic shrugged slightly, holding his head. "I've once been to a city in the jungle lying at a large river. It could be this one here… if so, it's gotta be downstream 'cause the riverbed was broader than it's here."

Tails nodded. "Then I guess let's follow the river for now."

"It's the only path around we won't need to fell trees to advance on anyway," Knuckles agreed, aware of his dry tone, but not really doing anything to change it. As far as he was concerned, it was the time for dry tones and for once he didn't feel like making a secret out of his not great mood. He just held his hand out at Sonic to help him up before getting a good grip around the hedgehog's back. "Let's get going. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll be out of this."

* * *

Night had fallen over Emerald Hill. After having wiped out what robots had been there around here, the unlikely team had decided to head for the jungles where more had been reported, hoping they'd either find Vector or Dr. Eggman there. Both of them would be best...

Amy turned over, tired but not enough to fall asleep. Next to her, Cream hugged Cheese and Charmy was for once and finally quiet. Silently the hedgehog sat up, briefly watching the sleeping kids before lifting her gaze to search Espio. The chameleon sat a good deal away from the rest on the top of a small hill, cast like a statue in the moonlight.

Amy stood up and slowly walked up to him. The way Espio turned a little in her direction at hearing her footsteps betrayed he wasn't as much meditating as he looked. "Do you ever sleep?", the pink hedgehog girl asked, tilting her head at him.

The chameleon shrugged. "Of course, but I don't need very much of it." His eyes closed again; a clear prompt for her to leave him alone, but Amy didn't plan on doing him that favor.

She shook her head. "How can you be so cold? Do you think I'm impressed? Or Charmy is?"

Espio reopened one eye, shooting a strange glance up to her. "Impressed of what?"

"You've just lost a friend! Do you feel anything at all?"

The second piercing reptile eye opened too. "I have _not_ lost him. I'll get him out."

Amy folded her arms. "Through sitting here and pretending you're a statue?"

The answer contained much less emotion than she'd have expected of anybody else. "No."

"Then what?"

Espio was silent for a long moment before he spoke quietly. "I have to… order my mind. Mental strength is important."

Amy blinked. "Ah. Then it does get to you after all."

The chameleon looked up to her again. "I will not lose anyone again."

Amy's ears perked. "Again?" Espio didn't reply and the pink girl decided to sit with him. "Come on, you can tell me. I won't go out and broadcast everything if you're worried. I'm not as dense as people think."

"I know." Once again his piercing eyes roamed her. "You're a strange person."

Amy frowned. "Thanks, and you're one charming guy, you know that?"

"I didn't mean it as an insult. Ninjas don't insult others; it's dishonorable." The chameleon gave her a nod. "When I said you were strange, I was just referring to your… changing behavior."

Amy raised a brow. "My what?"

"Most of the time when I saw you, you were attacking random people with hammers in a temper tantrum." Espio's words, though they would have sounded insulting from most people she knew, still came out soft and without force behind them; and Amy found she felt strangely pleased to talk, really talk, to someone other than a six-year old. "But then, sometimes you aren't like that."

"You are the second person saying that," Amy noticed. "Cream did too. I'm… trying to change, you know? I've decided to stop chasing Sonic. It's hopeless. I'm over him. I figured through all the years I've tried becoming his girlfriend without any success I might have forgotten who I really am. And now I don't know. I think… maybe if I learn to be different than a screaming fangirl…"

Espio cocked his head when Amy's flow of words cut off. "Just say it. You're not quite over him, are you?"

Amy's hand fisted. "No! And I'm really trying hard! But it's just… I can't stop what I've been feeling for four years! It just won't change!" She sniffled, trying her best not to start crying. Not in front of him. She was sure it'd spoil the little bit of respect he might hold for her, and she hadn't even known he did until now.

Espio didn't comment on her sudden outburst. He just watched her thoughtfully with those piercing and yet calm eyes. "Change is usually a flowing process; it rarely comes with a bang."

Amy wiped the backside of her hand over her eyes, for a reason she didn't understand spilling some more of her feelings to someone who was little more than a stranger. Maybe it was the late hour. Or he was using some ninja telepathy magic on her... Or rather not. "Coming from you, that doesn't sound so bad. But I just don't know what I feel any more…"

"Give yourself time."

Folding her arms again, Amy shot him a glare. "Says who? Mister 'I'm a ninja and don't have feelings'?"

Now it was Espio's turn to look insulted. "I do have feelings. Unlike you, I have just learned not to be controlled by them."

The hedgehog girl blinked. "You learned that? So, you were not better than me then, huh?"

Espio shrugged, again looking as if he'd given away more than he wanted. Maybe the late hour after all. "Perhaps."

Sighing, Amy shook her head. "I get it, you don't want to tell me. But you were about to explain me why you won't lose anyone _again_."

A frown flashed over the chameleon's brow and Amy couldn't help the feeling he'd been hoping she'd forget the topic. However he seemed to have decided to answer her question anyway, at least to a certain extent. "A couple years ago, the Chaotix was founded and had three members at first."

Mentally counting, Amy found there were also three now, but she didn't interrupt him.

"Vector became the boss, I think mostly because he was the oldest of us. Then there was me… and Mighty. We were both eleven or twelve then, and somehow we were like a family." Espio paused. "One day we found a bundle on our doorstep, containing a two-years old baby bee. We didn't manage to find the parents or who had brought him there, so we kept him.

During one of our quests we traveled to the Floating Island and met Knuckles. We worked together for a while because we had similar goals back then, but I haven't really talked to him ever since." Espio shrugged. "Our detective agency doesn't earn us too much, but the four of us could live on it.

About two years ago, we got a really big job. We were hunting after a thief. What we didn't know was that he had not only stolen stuff from a museum but also worked for an underground cartel." The chameleon took a slow breath. "Mighty was shot. For a while afterwards, we thought of closing the Chaotix, but none of us had anything else and we all figured Mighty would have wanted us to keep it up."

Amy nodded quietly, dropping her gaze. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

Espio shrugged. "It's alright; it was a long time ago."

"Hm." Amy nodded again and a few minutes passed in silence before the hedgehog dared breaking it. "Did you get the guy?"

"Yes, the police locked him up for good." Espio looked at her. "I might have lost Mighty back then, but I will not lose Vector."

"I understand. Cream and I are still after that vase that was stolen, so you can count us in, too." The pink hedgehog smiled.

Espio inclined his head and that strange formality was partly back in his voice. Partly. "Thank you."

Amy shook her head. "We're even I think. I can't remember having talked to anyone the way I talked to you tonight." She giggled. "Weird, isn't it? I barely even know you. And I always kinda thought you guys were just weirdos."

A small, rare smirk darted over Espio's face. "I'll give that compliment back."

She stuck out her tongue. "Thank you very much. Still charming." She blinked an eye at him. "So, friends?"

"Friends." Espio nodded. "But tomorrow I'll tell you again to shut up if you talk too much."

Amy grinned. "And I will get you straight with my hammer if you're not nice to a lady." She stood up. "Good night, Ninja."

"Good night, Fangirl."

Amy giggled and walked back down the hill, finally leaving him to himself in the starry night, to do his meditating or shadow-boxing or whatever else ninjas did after midnight.

* * *

Tako-y let her eyes roam the faces of the other members of her tribe as she walked past them, silently facing the mixed fear, surprise and lack of understanding of her doing, but some faces also showed respect for her bravery.

Lately almost none of the people of porcupines could find the heart to head out into the jungle further away from the village. It had started about half a moon cycle ago. There would be strange noises sounding through the jungle, the animals got scared and the hunters often came home without bringing food. A group that had ventured deeper into the forest to find out where the prey might have gone to had encountered horrible beasts, their skin as tough as a turtles' carapace, so hard that all arrows and spears had bounced off without hurting the demons. The five hunters that had come back repeatedly spoke of the glowing red eyes and the sharp claws. The elders dreaded, given the closeness to the sacred, hidden temples the monsters had been seen at, that the gods were in a bad mood. To make everything worse, yesterday parts of the sky had crashed down not too far from the village. No-one had dared going to look yet.

Tako-y's fingers closed a little tighter around her bow, and the feathers in the mixture of long hair and a couple of thin quills hanging from her head ruffled when she turned over her shoulder. Her brown eyes didn't stop at any of the other porcupines' faces anymore, instead her gaze sought her mentor, the only person she knew that had not been born in the village, the only one that had ever told her that there was other villages, somewhere in the far distance. Tako-y had never dared to ask what had led him to leave his own kind. She only knew he had chosen to stay with her people.

Okito – as he had been named after becoming one of their tribe – slightly inclined his head at her; his large, round ears perked upright and his rather small, almost black eyes softly resting on her. His hand slowly moved to wave at her, a wordless statement, not an order. Tako-y smiled, suddenly realizing that in spite of counting only 14 years, she was the only one having the guts to go out and try to research, try to find out what was upsetting the gods to turn against her peaceful people.

A smile slid over her face as she finally turned her back on the village, taking a small step out of the relative safety. It was not that the jungle was unknown to her. She was one of the tribe's best hunters and knew every tree, bush and stone within a couple days walks. There was just one thing that unsettled her. She didn't know what else was out there.

* * *

Had the temperatures been bearable a few hours ago when they had started walking, by now it was so hot and sticky the three of them were drenched in sweat. Sonic could feel his pulse hammering in his temple, a quick staccato of beats unpleasantly adding to the pounding headache that pestered him anyway. From a cloudless sky above, the sun was mercilessly burning down, the heat bad enough to still the in the morning so noisy jungle birds into almost complete silence. Right now, Sonic would have given a lot to be allowed sharing their lethargy.

Tails was walking a few meters ahead of Knuckles and him, the pair of bushy tails that was usually constantly twirling now dragging limply behind him. The fox was the one with the thickest pelt of the trio, but he had stopped complaining about the heat.

Coming to think of it, everyone had stopped complaining about anything at all, all three busy putting one foot in front of the other. Sonic dropped his gaze to his feet, finding his eyesight once again blurring slightly, wondering if taking some kind of way through the thickish undergrowth wouldn't be at least better than getting toasted like this.

The hedgehog was pulled out of his self-pity by a yelp of Tails. His head snapped up to see what happened a little faster than it could take at the moment and Sonic was glad for Knuckles keeping him upright as the world started to swim and spin. He had not yet recovered when he was pushed forwards a few steps and persuaded to sit down on the ground.

"Whaa! Sonic! Knuckles! What's this?" Tails' voice was shaking, 'causing Sonic to force his dizziness aside and look at him. The fox was standing on a patch of sand slightly lighter colored than the rest of the embankment, his feet stuck in it to a level slightly above his ankles. Wildly rowing his arms and spinning his namesakes, the young fox was trying to pull his feet back out of it, but even as Sonic watched he was sinking deeper.

"I can't get out!", the fox cried, starting to look truly terrified.

Knuckles had left Sonic's side and was now standing at the edge of the strange form of sand. "Don't move, Tails! The more you struggle, the faster it'll swallow you!"

"Quicksand?", Sonic asked numbly while Tails froze.

Knuckles nodded.

Tails stared down on his knees slowly but unstoppably disappearing into the ground. "Get me out! I'm scared!"


	9. Green Hell

Knuckles' head whirled to Sonic. "Stay with him, but don't get too close!"

"Where're ya going?", the hedgehog asked, but Knuckles had already run off and disappeared between the first bushes of the jungle.

"Sonic!", Tails whimpered.

The fox' knees had just been swallowed up by the sand, and somehow Sonic couldn't help the impression there was a hungry gurgling coming from the puddle.

"Just try staying calm, Tails," the hedgehog started. It seemed an utterly silly thing to say, knowing that Tails was sacred to death, but he couldn't think of anything else. "Knux will think of something."

"What if he's not fast enough?", the fox whined fearfully.

Sonic gulped dryly, helplessly watching the sand already reach up to Tails' waist. He felt like moving immediately and pull Tails out, but the fox was too far too reach without tripping into the puddle of quicksand himself. "I'm sure he already got an idea," he said finally, trying to encourage both Tails and himself.

The fox nodded weakly.

"And if he doesn't come, I'll jump in and pull you out," the hedgehog announced. It was another stupid thing to say, jumping in to join Tails would get him equally trapped, considering the way all of his movements were fast maybe even quicker than Tails, but Sonic felt he needed to do something. Anything! He wasn't used at all to just watch through something like that, and he surely wouldn't watch through his little brother being swallowed by the very ground. When he had taken the young fox under his wing years ago he had promised himself to always make sure nothing would happen to the little guy. Like... ever.

"Sonic, then you'll die too!" Tails was looking at the hedgehog in shock, for a small moment even seeming to have forgotten about the mud that by now went up to his chest.

"No-one will die, Tails. Don't you ever even think that!" Sonic shook his head. "Hold up your arms," he advised the fox. "We need something to pull at, don't we?"

"Hmm…" Tails nodded nervously, but held up his hands, seeming scared that even speaking would speed up his sinking.

Sonic nervously chewed his lip, nothing capable of keeping him in place any longer. Standing as close to the puddle as possible, and that alone needed some effort, he kept his eyes on Tails. The sand was crawling over the fox' shoulders, forcing him to tip back his head to keep his face up. _Damn, Knuckles, hurry it up_ , Sonic thought. "Look at me, Tails," he said, completely unnecessarily, the fox' blue eyes were clinging to him as if his sight was the only thing he could hold on to anyway. "We're gonna make it, okay? We've been through worse, haven't we?"

Tails didn't answer, his gaze filled with barely contained panic and his ears folded back in fright.

Sonic knew he'd be terrified too, in fact, he WAS terrified too. He was ready to try the impossible and jump anyway when Knuckles broke out of the bushes with a loud cracking of leaves, carrying a long, thick, y-shaped branch.

Stopping aside of Sonic, the echidna didn't waste any time with words, he just threw the double end of the wood out at Tails. There was nothing to say against Knuckles' aiming, it landed almost perfectly in Tails' upstretched hands and the fox' fingers firmly closed around it. Having a tight hold of the other end, Knuckles leaned back to pull.

Nothing happened. Unable to just watch anyway, Sonic took hold of the branch too, leaning into it with all his weight. Pulling wasn't really an option since he could hardly stand upright on his own. But it wasn't enough. Tails let out a desperate sob as it didn't seem to work.

"Okay, Sonic. I count to three," Knuckles commanded. "Tails, hold on tight." The echidna could have spared his breath, Tails was clinging to the thing tighter than he ever had to anything else.

Sonic shifted his hands around the branch, making sure he had the best grip on it he could get.

"One, two, three!" At the sound of the last number, Knuckles tugged on the branch with all his might, Sonic let himself fall backwards while clinging to the wood, and finally Tails moved a little, sliding out of the sand up to his armpits.

Several more jolts were needed to get the fox close enough to the puddles' edge for the others to reach his arms. Each grabbing one hand, they finally managed to pull him free. Covered in semi-damp dirt from neck to feet and tears running down his cheeks, Tails sank into his friends' arms. Not much more than a meter from the close to fatal puddle Sonic sat on the ground gasping and held Tails in a gentle hug while Knuckles had started to awkwardly pat the fox' back.

Sonic looked up at the echidna. "That was damn close. What the hell took you so long?"

Looking embarrassed, Knuckles shrugged apologizing. "Has any of you noticed these goddamn jungle trees have no branches up to twenty meters height?"

Tails wiped the tears from his eyes, his dirty gloves painting streaks of mud on his face. "You had to climb all the way up?"

Knuckles nodded. "Yeah. And then find a piece that wasn't too short or too thick. I'm sorry I wasn't faster, Tails." Sonic found the echidna looked strangely defeated.

"It's okay. We still did it, right?" Tails smiled weakly, calming down quickly now that he was safe and the most immediate shock easing away.

Sonic smiled proudly and blinked an eye at him. "I told you so, didn't I?"

"Hmm," Tails nodded. "Um, guys?"

"What's it, Tails?", Knuckles asked worriedly.

Smiling sheepishly Tails looked himself down. "I think I need a bath now."

Sonic laughed. Tails' orange fur was close to invisible under a sticky coat of brown. "I guess you have a point."

"Okay," Knuckles agreed and to Sonic's surprise he didn't look mad about the delay. "We'll find a good spot and take a break."

* * *

The dry leaves on the ground made almost no sound as her bare feet softly brushed over them. Tako-y stopped right beside a giant tree's stem, resting one of her hands against the bark as she watched a small amount of golden rings floating in the air not far from her stand. Okito claimed they were harmless, but there was something overworldish about them… Still, Tako-y loved the looks of them, like beautiful pieces of jewelry. When she had been a little girl, she had imagined the goddesses in the heavens wearing the rings like her people wore chains of pearls. A smile tugged on her lips as she set off again.

So far, she had not met any hard-shelled demon or been struck by lightening or killed by the very sky falling down onto her head. That was an assuring notion, wasn't it? On the other hand, if there was nothing unfamiliar to encounter, how was she going to find out what exactly was wrong in her home?

The black furred female frowned, continuing her way along one of the thin paths all of her tribe used. She wouldn't have needed to hear the rushing sounds of it to know she was getting near the river, she knew the rainforest like she knew her hut. This was her home. All of it.

Generally, Tako-y liked being near the river. It was the only place she knew that allowed seeing the sky, bright and blue, or dark when the rain came, or full of stars. The legends said the souls of gone people went up to the stars, others said the ones that had built the sacred temples had gone there as well. Tako-y had rarely questioned the old stories. If she knew how the stars got to be what they were, would they look the same? Could she still look up to them and feel safe? Or would she become like many of the others? Scared of what they didn't understand?

The young porcupine's musing was interrupted when her ears caught a tiny sound, almost inaudible through the noise from the river and the twitters, screams and other sounds the animals made, but she noticed it immediately for it didn't belong among the normal noise. Freezing on the spot, her pointy ears twitched slightly as she tried to place it. It was a whirling, like the wings of a flower bird, but louder, bigger. While she was still trying to assess what she was hearing, the strange noise died out, only to be shortly afterwards replaced by a sound she knew. People, talking and walking, not very far from where she stood.

Swiftly ducking into the bushes to her left, she crept through the thick undergrowth until reaching the point where it opened to make place to the riverside. Carefully the girl's hands moved the big leaves of the plant she lay under aside so she could look out onto the clearing.

Her head tipped slightly aside as she watched the two strangers. Definitively no armored monsters. Though she had never seen any of them, the two creatures looked a lot more like her than they did even like Okito. Like some of her own people's, their furs were brightly colored, red and blue. Even from the bit of distance, she could see they were both males, but whatever their status was, neither of them wore any sign of it.

The red was rather tall and strongly built, from his head a good number of long quills fell down around his shoulders, a lot more and thicker than any of the people she knew had. Other than that, she only noticed he had no visible ears, and for a second the little girl in her wondered what could have happened to him to lose them. Maybe the same thing that had bent his tail like that…

Currently the red stranger was supporting his blue companion, holding one arm around the blue's back to help him walk. The blue was slightly smaller than the other one, his arms and belly lacking the fur, but his head equipped with thick, slightly down-curved spikes that gently bounced up and down with his movements, but nevertheless something told her these things could be dangerous weapons of defense. In fact, the blue one was a lot spikier than any of her people, even as his red companion, Tako-y noticed with a bit of fascination as she spotted the two arced quills on his shoulder blades.

The blue one's need for help and the bandage around his head told her the boy had to be injured. Had the two strangers met the armored demons and survived a fight against them? Or had parts of the falling sky hit the blue one?

Just from the slight familiarity the looks of the two gave, Tako-y was getting ready to leave her hideout and welcome them as fellow porcupines from far off where people might look a little different; but the return of the whirring noise stopped her from doing so.

Observing the two strangers, they had clearly noticed the sound as well, they stopped walking, looked up and exchanged a few words in a language she had never heard. Just a couple seconds later, a third figure gently descended from the sky, floating weightlessly like the rings did. The creature hovered in front of the two others, pointing down the river and speaking another set of words she couldn't understand. Then it turned around and flew off again, the others following.

Tako-y gazed after them, not daring to believe what she had seen. _The gods have sent a messenger._

* * *

Slightly moving his feet and causing a small gurgling sound from the water, Sonic sighed in relief. The concept that _water_ would be capable of giving him any comfort at all was utterly strange, even more so taking into account his memories of what it had almost done to him yesterday were still so fresh, but combined with the shadow they'd found under a large tree the cool liquid was so very pleasing.

Sitting on a rock, dangling his legs into the river, the hedgehog enjoyed at least the portion of headache that had been intensified by the burning heat easing out of him. Keeping still like that, he felt almost okay again and at least for the moment the world had stopped spinning.

Had the position he kept right now with his feet in the water been the nearest to the wet stuff the hedgehog could take, his two friends didn't know that kind of limits. To Sonic's left the trio's clothing formed a small heap; neither Knuckles nor Tails had hesitated at all to just jump all the way into the river that was flowing another wide curve and therefore slow and calm.

A smile tugged on Sonic's lips as he watched Tails paddling in circles around Knuckles, splashing water at the echidna with his hands, feet and twin tails. Seeming refreshed enough to get boosted to an unfamiliarly good mood, the red echidna tilted his head at the fox orbiting him.

At his current position, the water reached up to Knuckles' chest so he could easily stand in it while turning on the spot. Faking a grumble, the echidna suddenly did a quick leap towards Tails, catching hold of the fox and readily lifting him out of the water and over his head. "I told you not to this. You're scaring off my lunch. Go play over there!" With one swift movement of his arms and giving a suppressed laugh, Knuckles hurtled Tails up into the air.

Taken too much by surprise to react quickly, the fox dropped into the water almost ten meters away after a perfect parable, the brownish current swallowing him up with a loud splash. Just a few seconds later he broke through the surface again, spat out a mouthful of water and reproachfully looked at Knuckles. "That wasn't fair!"

"So, wasn't it?" Knuckles smirked and turned around.

Sonic chuckled, watching Tails use his namesakes to lift himself out of the water and fly over to the echidna, before stopping his tails from spinning and curling up to dive bomb Knuckles. If the echidna had expected the attack or been secretly watching Tails someway Sonic couldn't tell, but a second before the little fuzzy wet bullet of revenge-seeking fox could impact directly aside of him, Knuckles dived forwards and smoothly slipped under the water surface.

Finally no longer able to keep it in, Sonic burst out laughing as Tails resurfaced a second time in ten seconds with a rather dumbfounded look on his normally so smart face. Glaring over at the hedgehog before spinning around to track down his escaped victim, Tails' blue eyes cast over the river. "Where'd that coward go?"

Standing up in the water about five meters away from Tails, Knuckles was still wearing a smirk. "Maybe you should consider stopping to insult me… if you don't want to starve." Needing both hands to hold his rather large but slippery prey, Knuckles slowly walked out of the river, water dripping from his long spines.

"Hey, you caught a fish!", Tails shouted in excitement, forgetting his little quarrel with Knuckles quickly.

Sonic ran a hand over his empty stomach. He was dying for some food. _But why in the world does it have to be fish?_


	10. Communication

Sonic sighed groggily to himself. This sucked, really. It wasn't even two hours since they had started walking again, and they were walking so slowly it'd drive him nuts at any other time… and still, he felt heavy and tired and he just wanted to sit down again somewhere and close his eyes to hopefully ease the headache. It had been a lot better sitting at the river and in the shade, but now it seemed like someone was constantly beating a hammer against his left temple and his skull wouldn't take much more of this.

Tails had left him and Knuckles a while ago to fly ahead and find them a place for camping during the next night, and close to half an hour had passed since the fox came back. Sonic secretly wondered how much further it could be. At least at the previously blue sky a few smaller clouds were forming that sometimes for just a few minutes obscured the hot sun.

If Knuckles was truly minding anything about the conditions would likely stay his secret. Tails seemed to have completely gotten over his shocking experience with the quicksand a couple hours ago and after the bath he looked strangely energetic. Maybe it was just that Sonic was feeling so little like his regular self that Tails appeared a sharp contrast though.

"How long is it?", the hedgehog finally broke the silence, his pride complaining he'd even let the question slip out, but the rest of him couldn't care less what it said right now.

Tails turned over his shoulder to face him. "Just one turn I guess. There isn't a proper place earlier, look at all the plants around…"

Sonic nodded submissively. "Yeah. I don't wanna know what lives there to sneak out at night and bite us."

"And poison us, too! I –" Tails' sentence was suddenly interrupted by Knuckles.

"Guys? Stop. No fast movements. And don't shout."

Sonic turned his head to the echidna. "What?" Through his arm that lay around Knuckles' shoulder for support again, Sonic could feel his friend's muscles tense.

"We're not alone," the echidna answered quietly. "That bush to the left."

Sonic quickly looked, his eyes roaming the green mess of plants and freezing on the spot when the bush stared back at him. No, not the bush, a pair of eyes hidden between the leaves. The plants to his right and behind ruffled and the three friends whirled around, finding the space around them occupied by a group of at least twenty figures.

From their looks, Sonic directly classified them as porcupines; he'd seen one or two of this species before and found it to be a match. Spotting fur colors from different shades of yellow and orange up to dark brown and black, all of them had their long spines and head fur adorned with feathers and pearls; the females also wearing colorful clothing. On second look, Sonic found the whole group was equipped either with bow and arrow or spears whose tips now readily pointed at Sonic and his friends.

"Umm… Sonic? Do you think they wanna eat us?", Tails asked slightly shaken.

"No. Why should they?" The hedgehog let his eyes wander over the different faces. "They could say something though and stop staring at us like that. It's making me nervous."

"I think they don't know really what to do with us now," Knuckles noticed.

Sonic frowned. "Well, they should have thought that through before sneaking up on us like that. Hey, you! How about a greeting?"

"Sonic!" Tails nervously looked at his older brother when the hedgehog bluntly turned to the porcupine closest to him and addressed the stranger.

"What?" Sonic shrugged, turning back to his friends. "He didn't answer me anyway. Do you think they understand what we are saying?"

Knuckles tilted his head a little, causing one of his long dreads to fall over his shoulder. "I'm not sure; they haven't reacted to anything yet. They didn't come closer either. They stopped us from walking away, but they give us some space."

Sonic looked around and grimaced. "Yeah, great. About two square meters."

"If they wanted they could have attacked us already," Knuckles pointed out.

"Then… what do they want?" Sonic raised an eyebrow. His head pounded and he didn't feel much like thinking about the motives of a group of strangers that suddenly popped out of the jungle around them.

"Eat us anyway? Maybe they're just pondering which one of us tastes best?" Tails nervously shifted his weight, blue eyes quickly going from one porcupine to the next.

"Tails, calm down. That's crap," Sonic reasoned, trying to get through to the fox before he could get himself into a panic. The hedgehog brought a small smirk to his face. "And if they're that hungry, Knux makes the best meal…"

"Why me?", the echidna grumbled annoyed.

"You're the heaviest?" Sonic grinned, ears twitching playfully. Knuckles shook his head in slight annoyance, probably wondering how Sonic could feel like kidding around right now, but Tails relaxed a little at Sonic's displayed lack of nervousness.

The hedgehog was about to suggest they could just try what happened if they started moving again, when light noises sounded from the bushes in front of them. A few seconds later, the giant leaves were pushed aside to reveal a slightly fat male with his head topped by a large kind of feather hat or crown and a good amount of bracelets around his neck. Sonic assumed him to be something important, the chief maybe.

The porcupines' boss was accompanied by a young female, and while he stopped as far away from Sonic and friends as the others did, the girl closed in by another few steps. Aside of her tan-skinned muzzle and inner ears, her body was covered in the blackest fur Sonic had ever seen. She didn't seem to have any markings at all, but in spite of being blacker than Shadow even, nothing about her was dark. Her slender frame was covered in a loose skirt and a kind of top made from a beige tissue, but covered so much with colorful symbols and pearls that Sonic was by now sure her people loved colorful things.

From her face, a pair of chestnut brown eyes currently twinkled with almost childish excitement, but as well showed a bit of nervousness and uncertainty as her gaze wandered over Sonic and Knuckles to stop at Tails, but she didn't hold her gaze at the fox, instead smoothly slipped to one knee and one foot, holding both hands out at Tails and bowing her head in a gesture of utter respect, more whispering her words than truly saying them, but none of them were of an understandable language anyway.

Suddenly finding himself in the center of attention, Tails took a step backwards, turning around to Sonic, blue eyes screaming for his big brother to tell him what to do now.

"Umm… she likes you I think," the hedgehog noticed, also at a loss for how to react. "Maybe you can persuade her to stand up, she shouldn't be kneeling in front of people..."

"Maybe they regard us as something special or important," Knuckles noticed, a deep, thoughtful frown on his face. "They are trying to show us respect. Tails, try greeting them or something."

His twin namesakes twirling rapidly as they always did when Tails was exited, the young fox turned back to the girl. "Hey, how about if you stand up?" He gestured at her to help explain his words and though she didn't seem to understand their language, she understood the gesture and stood, tilting her head and nervously drilling one of her spines between her fingers.

For a couple of awkward moments both parties just looked at each other, then the feather-crowned pointed at one of the spear-carriers that responded by handing his weapon to his neighbor and walked up to his assumed-to-be leader. Reaching into his strange headwear and pulling out one extraordinary long, bright green feather, the chief handed it to the second porcupine, which in turn stepped up to join the black-furred girl's side.

Gesturing at Tails and throwing Knuckles and Sonic short glances in between, she took the feather from her companion's hand and held it out at Tails. The words of her unknown language flew softly from her mouth, but – unable to understand them – all the trio could judge their content by was her tone, and the tone was pleading and full of respect.

"Maybe it's a welcome or something," Knuckles guessed. "We shouldn't turn it down; it could make them angry."

Slowly stretching out his hand, Tails unsurely looked at the green feather. "You want to give me that? As a present?"

Though not knowing what he'd said, a chain reaction of suppressed whispers ran through the line of porcupines around, and the girl shoved the feather a little closer to him.

"Umm… okay." Tails reached out far enough to touch the feather and quickly found it being fully put into his hands. He turned it around, examining the darker streaks it had, then looked back up at the girl, trying to find a gesture that would explain his words. "Thank you. It's pretty."

It followed another moment of silence, and Sonic considered if they should maybe return the favor and give them a present too, though they had nothing with them that would be suited really, but before the hedgehog could get to any form of result, the feather-crowned addressed the black girl. Sonic followed the exchange of a few sentences with little interest, the words sounded nice, but he didn't understand anything at all. The blue hedgehog gathered his attention again when the young female turned back to them.

After saying a few gentle words to Tails – for some reason they all had a faible for the fox – she started doing something that didn't match the controlled, respectful manners she and the rest of her group had portrayed so far at all. She pointed at Tails, then upwards and started hopping on the spot, waving her arms as if they were wings. Sonic bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud, certainly their new acquaintances wouldn't like him doing that. A glance to his side revealed Knuckles having raised an eyebrow in surprise, but other than that the echidna perfectly kept his composure.

While Sonic and Knuckles were if at all amused and surprised at the girl's sudden strange action, Tails smiled at her. "You can stop it, I guess I understand. You wanna see this, don't you?" Spinning his two namesakes, the fox swiftly lifted himself up.

A brief smile flashed over the girl's face at finding her gestures comprehended, but it rapidly turned into an expression of astonishment as she watched him.

Spinning his tails to hover just half a meter above the ground, Tails stared around in disbelief at finding anyone but the girl, Knuckles and Sonic slip to their knees and mumbling unintelligible words while their eyes lay fixed on him. Dropping back down, Tails turned to the black girl again. "Hey, make them stand up! There's nothing special about this! It's just a bit of flying!"

"I'm starting to think in their eyes a flying fox is something very special," Sonic remarked, feeling a frown form on his face now.

"We might as well be the first strangers they met," Knuckles noticed, also obviously not quite sure what to make of the strange situation.

Tails turned back to the porcupines, finding them at least all on their feet again. The girl was holding a hand out at the three friends, speaking another sentence in her language with a gentle smile on her face.

Tails rubbed his chin. "I'm sorry, what do you want?"

If they had taken his question as a positive reply or something was hard to tell, but two male porcupines stepped up to Tails and had grabbed the fox before any of the trio had a chance to react. Lifting him over their heads and looking rather proud and happy, the two started to carry Tails off, the rest of their group slowly moving to follow.

"Hey, let me down! What do you think you're doing! Hey! Sonic!" Tails struggled a little, but instead of being put down, the two carrying him started to bounce him up and down.

"Leave Tails alone!", Sonic shouted angrily, unable to run after Tails due to Knuckles' firm hold on his arm.

"Don't upset them," the echidna told him in a quiet voice. "So far they didn't do anything. We have no idea what they're up to."

"Maybe Tails was right after all and they think we make a nice meal," Sonic muttered without looking at Knuckles.

Before the echidna got a change to answer, the black-furred girl had grabbed his free hand and was pulling on it with a remarkable strength, at the same time some others of the jungle's natives started pushing Knuckles and Sonic from behind, shoving in the direction Tails was currently being carried as well.

Sonic looked between the seemingly happy porcupines. Now what were he and his friend to them? Guest? Prisoners? Or really rather food? The hedgehog searched Knuckles' gaze, asking a silent question: _What now?_


	11. Jungle Wisdom

Surrounded by a wooden wall, the numerous small huts of the village snuggled into the spaces between large stems of jungle trees. No-one had considered felling them, and the thick green of the treetops forty meters above sheltered the village from the sun's heat that had been so pestering on the clearing along the riverside.

The more or less willing 'guests' were escorted through a broad entrance in the fence around the settlement, along a few narrow alleys and to the front of one of the huts. Judging from the feather-decorated spears in front of the entrance, the neighbor's hut was that of the chief. This one they now stood in front of was lacking any special decoration but the colorful carpet-like thing concealing the door.

Curiously Sonic took a look around. Most of their escort had left in silence, the chief entered the profusely decorated house, Tails seemed pretty relieved that he was being put down on his own feet again and was now nervously playing with the feather he'd been given, Knuckles stoically looked as if nothing happening could truly affect him, and the girl now pulled the carpet-door aside, gesturing for Sonic and his friends to enter.

Knuckles shrugged in reply, but followed her invitation; a moment later Sonic and Tails did too.

Rapidly blinking a few times to adjust to the dim light in the hut, Sonic cast a glance over his surroundings and found himself surprisedly looking into the face of not yet another porcupine, but an elderly mouse, dressed in a colorful robe like the other natives had been, the fur around his round, big ears and his muzzle starting to grey. Small eyes wandered over the three newcomers, the he waved at the young female, 'causing her to nod and leave.

Clearing his throat, the mouse let his gaze roam the trio again. "Welcome."

Sonic blinked. "Hey, you speak our language!"

"Yes," the elder nodded. "Sit down and join me. One doesn't make conversation standing around like the trees in the forest." The mouse watched the three settling down before he continued, his voice calm and gentle. "Maybe we should start with a simple greeting, I see you have many questions, and so do I, but the first guests we have in decades shouldn't be treated in a rush." He smiled. "My people calls me by the name of 'Okito', translated to your language it means something like 'he-who-knows'."

Sonic nodded. "Nice to meet you. I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog."

"My name is Miles Prower, but I don't like it. Everybody calls me Tails, well, because I got two." The young fox indicated his twin tails. Okito raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

"My name is Knuckles," the red echidna finished, "last of the echidnas and guardian of the sacred Master Emerald. We're honored to meet you."

Okito inclined his head. "The last of the echidnas… When I was your age, everybody used to believe the only thing left of the echidnas was ruins all over Mobius."

"You… have been to school or something?" Sonic's ears twitched as the hedgehog tipped his head aside in interest.

The mouse chuckled softly. "Do I look like a porcupine to you?" He shook his head. "You're right, I wasn't born here. I passed my youth in Metropolis, studied history and sociology and intelligent things like that. Somehow, one day I realized how much nonsense this world I lived in was, how little I knew about how the world actually works. I got restless and left on a trip to discover the world.

Over many different places I ended up in this jungle. I knew nothing about this place then, and quickly my lack of experience got at me and I got bitten by a snake. I lay dying when I was found by these kind and friendly creatures. They took me to their village and nursed me back to health.

I was granted to see their world, it's a small one, a simple one, but I fell in love with it. You know, their language knows no word for 'enemy' or 'betrayal'. The life I found here holds no luxury or any high standards like I knew from the cities, but somehow I found my peace here. I learned to speak their language, understand their culture, and they adopted me into their people."

He smiled. "Sometimes they get cute ideas. Sadly, isolated as we are, there is hardly any contact to the world outside, and my friends can be horribly superstitious. Lately a couple of uncommon events have disturbed our peace, and they widely believe the gods to be in anger. I expect a lot of things by now, but when Tako-y came home speaking of a messenger of the gods, I didn't really know what to think."

Sonic frowned. "Messenger of the gods?"

Okito nodded. "Yes, a flying, divine being sent down from the heavens." His eyes turned over to Tails. "From hearing the descriptions, it can only be you, though I don't see the point."

Tails blushed a little under his white fur. "I can fly, using my tails."

"Most surprising," Okito noticed, though he didn't sound that surprised. "How did you get here?", he changed the subject.

"We were pursuing our enemy, Dr. Eggman. He stole some objects from my home, Angel Island," Knuckles explained. "Sonic and Tails offered to help me retrieve the stolen things, and we set out to chase Eggman in Tails' plane."

"Eggman had a flying vessel himself," Tails continued. "He didn't like us following him very much, he shot us down using the ship's weapons. Now we lost our plane, track of Eggman, don't really know were we are and Sonic got hurt when we crashed."

Okito nodded, for a few seconds silently looking down to the floor, then he focused back on Knuckles. "What caused the conflict between you and this 'Eggman'?"

Knuckles cleared his throat to keep a calm composure, but he had to fist his hand to really keep himself in check. "Eggman is a robotist. He builds machines of all sorts, but instead of making them helpful devices for people, his goal is to achieve world domination. While trying to do so, he invaded my home, burned down a forest, captured the animals and tried to steal and abuse the Master Emerald."

"Over years Eggman's always been coming up with new schemes to conquer the world," Sonic took over. "He unleashed monsters from the past, built giant satellites and sent armies of robots to take over the cities on Mobius. I've been fighting Eggman since I was ten and he destroyed the place where I grew up at, South Island, killing most of the people I knew. Someone had to fight him, I could and so I guess I did. Later I got to know Tails and Knuckles, and right now we're a team kinda."

Once again, the mouse nodded in silence, slowly thinking over what he'd been told before raising his head again. "You say he builds robots. When I left what you call the civilized world, robots were still science-fiction."

Tails shrugged. "I've seen so many of them, I can assure you they're real."

"These robots… could it be possible that some of them are here, maybe to search for you?" Okito folded his arms.

"Search for us?" Knuckles shook his head. "I doubt that Eggman cares."

"I might be wrong, but some of our hunters returned a few days ago, in terror speaking of glazed armored demons the arrows couldn't injure, with claws and glowing red eyes…"

The three friends exchanged glances. "Glowing red eyes and made out of metal?", Tails said, thoughtfully rubbing his head. "That could fit Eggman's bots."

"We crashed here yesterday; they can't be here for us," Sonic pointed out.

"Where have you seen them?", Knuckles asked. "Or, where have your people seen them?"

"About two and a half days walk from here, you can find a set of ruins, from all I can tell built by your people in the far past. Most of them are covered in plants and hard to find." Okito's small dark eyes searched the echidna. "Two times a year, at the start of each rain season, we travel there and celebrate at the temples. My people believe the temples have been given to us by the gods to have a place to worship them. All of the ruins are sacred ground and we only go there these two times per year. It is a strange place, even if you're an educated person and know how to separate legends from reality. As long as I live here, strange things happen at the ruins."

Knuckles quirked an eye ridge. "Do you think the robots were headed for these ruins?"

"I don't know, but I don't see anything else that could attract their attention."

"What do you think, guys? Eggman is at another archeology trip?" Sonic looked between his friends.

"He's sent robots to dig on Angel Island, and if we're right he's sent robots to dig here in the ruins," Tails nodded. "I wonder what he's up to…"

"Can't be anything good. The last time he was after my ancestors' history, we ended up facing Perfect Chaos." Knuckles' face was cast in a serious frown. "I have no idea what he knows we don't, but if we don't find out fast it might be too late."

"You're right," Tails agreed, "Eggman doesn't travel over half of Mobius to find something to decorate his house. If he had one. If Eggman's interested, it's gotta be something powerful."

Knuckles turned to Okito. "I am afraid I can't keep you company for much longer. Would you do me the favor to tell me the way to find these ruins and take care of Sonic and Tails?"

"Hey, you don't plan on going alone, do you?" Sonic shot to his feet, then rapidly needed to grab a hold of Tails' shoulder to steady himself as it proved to be too fast.

"Yes I do," Knuckles replied. "It is my people's heritage he's after again, so it's my responsibility. I have already dragged you into this too far."

"How can you seriously think you'll be able to get along with Eggman all on your own? No way, we're coming with you!" Sonic's eyes narrowed a little.

"No you don't," Knuckles insisted. "You can hardly walk on your own, how do you plan on fighting?"

"I'm perfectly fine," Sonic retorted, knowing this was a lie, but not willing to admit it.

"I see how fine you are, hedgehog," Knuckles gave back, standing up too and quickly reaching to pinch Sonic's bandaged temple, 'causing the hedgehog to clutch his head and bite his lip against the pain.

"What was that for?", he hissed through both anger and pain while struggling to keep upright.

"Get some sense, Sonic! Another hot day like this one and you're gonna get killed by a random bot because you can't walk straight! Stay here, rest for a few days and come after me." Knuckles crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I get some sense?", Sonic snapped, "I? How about you get some yourself, Knucklehead? Why don't you wait a couple days then too? The damn ruins have been there for thousands of years, they won't run off or something!"

"Eggman will, and whatever he finds I can't let him have it!" Knuckles had stepped a little closer, by now angry enough to forget he didn't mean to lose his manners in front of their host.

"Ah, now look at that! And you always tell me I was the one rushing into things without thinking ahead!" Sonic fisted his hands.

"I am thinking ahead! You're the one who isn't using his brains again," Knuckles growled. "And that's why I'm going there and you stay here!"

Sonic's ears folded against his head while his quills ridged slightly, a clear sign of how very angry he was. "We'll see about that! Make me!"

Knuckles glared at him. "I am tempted to do so, it wouldn't be so difficult."

Sonic braced himself at the quiet threat in Knuckles' tone, but instead of punching him in the gut or something else the hedgehog would have expected, the echidna held his gaze for a couple seconds more before turning around and leaving without further words. This was so far from anything Sonic would have thought he'd do that he stood dumbfounded for a moment before turning to Tails who still sat on the ground. "Now what? Am I right or am I right? He's gonna run into trouble!"

"Yes, he is." Tails nodded. "But you're both right." The fox stood too, turning to the slightly confused Okito. "I'm sorry, they're usually on good terms, but sometimes they just get at each other's necks. I'll see if I find Knuckles."

Sonic just stood and watched Tails go. _I am right, aren't I?_

"Sonic." Okito's voice was as calm as before, and nothing about his features showed what he thought about the scene he'd just witnessed.

"What?", the blue hedgehog snapped, much sharper than intended.

Strangely, the mouse didn't seem to mind being snapped at, he calmly gestured to the carpet he still sat on. "Sit down. Before you fall…"

Sonic grumbled. "It's really not that bad. I'm not a baby; I can stand just great."

" _Sit down_ ," Okito repeated, a little more commanding than before and Sonic did it in spite of feeling much more like running after Knuckles and kicking the stupid idiot's butt. Instead, he found himself being looked at by the elderly mouse. "You want to run, solve all your problems fast and easy," Okito started speaking again, and some of Sonic's anger was shoved aside by astonishment. "But sometimes the best way isn't the quickest."

Sonic stared at him. "How do you…?"

"Know something about you you didn't tell me directly?" Okito smiled. "Sonic, you're young. And you're easy to read, especially when you're angry. I could tell you why you are mad at Knuckles for what he decided, I could tell you why Knuckles is mad at you, but you will learn to understand in time on your own."

Sonic frowned. He didn't like to be talked to as if he was a grouchy little kid. "But he _is_ a Knucklehead. He never listens to anything I say."

"Do you listen to what he says?"

Sonic was about to say something like 'of course', and if only to make clear he was better than the echidna, but somehow it wouldn't come out. "He doesn't understand me anyway," he muttered instead.

"Do you understand him?" Okito tilted his head. "You speak from different points, but still your intentions are much more alike than you think."

Sonic grimaced, reaching out to carefully feel for his temple. "How comes nothing you say makes sense, but still sounds so intelligent?"

Okito chuckled. "I have seen a lot of young people like you. I have known a lot of people anyway. If the two of you weren't so focused on getting your own opinion across, you'd see how both of you have your points."

Sonic pulled a face. "Have you ever been told you talk strange stuff?"

The mouse smiled softly. "No, I rarely met someone as open as you I guess. Or may I say _blunt_? But I'm sure many people have thought so." A few moments passed in silence. "Give yourself and your friends some time, will you? There should be a hut prepared for you by now. Go there, take some downtime. I'll send you Tako-y. She's good at things like that; she'll get you something for your head. Okay?"

Sonic sighed. "Okay, deal. If you're feeling lucky, try talking some sense into Knux. Maybe you have better chances than I do."


	12. Strangers and Friends

Poking her head into Okito's hut in curiosity, Tako-y found the blue boy sitting in the floor, the expression on his face not really happy. Not that she hadn't expected it, standing in front of the hut she had easily witnessed the argument between Blue and Red, though she didn't understand what it had been about.

A second after Red, the divine flying creature had exited the hut, but she hadn't seen much of him as he'd immediately ran into a group of porcupines. Offering food and presents, they had more dragged than persuaded the orange furred angel to accompany them to the center of the village. The medicine man would want to hold a ceremony to ban the forces of evil from their people that had been lingering about the village.

Five minutes later, sitting aside of Okito and being filled in on what the strangers had told her older friend, her face wore a blush of embarrassment at being reduced to what she accused the others to be – blind, too quickly jumping to conclusions if something happened that wasn't normal.

"I have been a fool," she muttered, her head lowering in shame and her long hair and spines falling over her shoulders as if meaning to cover her face.

"No, you have not," Okito contradicted calmly. "One sometimes draws wrong conclusions. It was good to let them bring here. From everything I learned already, we will be able to help each other."

Tako-y held her eyes down, letting almost a minute pass until she looked up at him, daring to let him see her curiosity. "So, they come from the world you once came from?"

"Yes."

Tako-y was silent for another moment. "Are people very different from us in this land?"

Okito smiled. "Not that much. Why do you ask?"

"I wouldn't yell at my friends like that," she stated in light irritation. "A friend is someone you like and care for, not someone to shout at."

The mouse softly looked at her. "Sonic and Knuckles argue because they care for each other." Seeing Tako-y's confused look, he shrugged. "Sometimes we do things we can't explain why we're doing them, and sometimes regret having done them. Don't we?"

She tilted her head. Once in a while, Okito would talk and she wouldn't quite be able to follow. "I guess," she settled.

A knowing smirk on his face, Okito nodded towards the blue boy that still sat looking at his hands in his lap, not really following their conversation as he couldn't understand their language anyway. "Show Sonic the way to the hut prepared for our guests, and be so nice to take care of his wound. I will go and rescue Tails before anyone makes another mistake."

Again looking abashed, Tako-y nodded. "What about the red one? Do you want me to search for him?"

Shaking his head, Okito slowly rose to his feet. "No. He'll come by himself."

* * *

The jungle looked just the way she'd expected it to look. Green. It was pretty hot, and even Charmy had piped down by now. The self-proclaimed Vector rescue squad was marching along a small path, Espio leading the way, followed by Charmy and Cream, currently carrying a sleeping Cheese.

Amy herself was following behind, making sure they wouldn't lose either of the two kids, but aside a game of tag an hour ago both of them stayed in line. Cream wasn't a problem anyway; it was Charmy they'd constantly need to watch over. Somehow Amy didn't envy the two older detectives for their job bringing up that hyperactive kid… although she had to admit something about the bee was adorable.

Other than that, Amy was glad she was getting some peace and quiet to think. She didn't mean to think too much about stuff, but she found the more she did the more at ease she felt about it. Sonic was her first crush, first love… but he clearly wouldn't stay her last. She didn't want that.

There were other things she didn't find so promising any more. She didn't want to be just the girl that follows that blue hero around; she didn't want to be just the girlfriend of the blue hero either. She'd learned to look after herself, she was a person, she didn't need someone else to define herself. She was a strong girl, and suddenly she found it wouldn't please her to be just a pretty face next to a handsome blue hedgehog.

Amy frowned. It wasn't his looks anyway she loved most about Sonic. What had really made her attracted to him was the sense of adventure he brought along; it was the way he acted, the excitement he personified that had made him her hero. Sure, she also admired the way he cared for his friends and stood up for people.

He'd come along just like that and captured her heart. No, he'd captured her life. Ever since he'd come along, he was her goal, her purpose. She wanted to be with him, forever. She wanted to be happy.

Another frown formed on the young girl's face. Was she happy? Would she be happier if she got to catch him? She'd thought so, her very definition of 'happy' included him. Well, most of her ideas did. She'd seen them do all kind of things together, have dates… and then…

Yeah, then what?

Amy blinked, her train of thoughts abruptly coming to a halt. What could Sonic the wanderer get out of this? What would even she get out of this? The chase over… and the excitement that she adored around him… gone.

She'd thought she needed Sonic to be happy… but now as she reflected just a little on what had been in her life, she was almost shocked to realize the happiest moments in her life didn't span around him. The most exiting ones, yes. But the happiest? Chasing the fastest thing alive was an attempt doomed to fail, and she knew it, knew it everytime she tried. She'd hoped he'd stop for her, one day… but now… You can't catch the wind, and even if you do, you can't hold on to it.

Once more, Amy frowned in confusion at her own thoughts. Was she really thinking that? … Probably Espio had been right and she was growing out of it after all.

To be honest, she was tired. Tired of running after him if there never came a reply. Tired of chasing an illusion. Tired of being reduced to it. Tired of wanting to love him no matter what. Did she really need this?

Yes, something definitively was changing, Amy realized. She'd never thought she'd look on Sonic and what she felt for him that way… but thinking it over and over again and again, she grew more and more used to the image of her hanging around him like the rest of his friends instead of clinging to him, and strangely it more and more appealed to her. Even a great hero needs friends by his side, and seriously the idea to lift her hammer for him and not against him seemed… appropriate for a friend.

Amy smiled. If she didn't need to be his lover, she still would try to be something for him she should have been all along. A true friend… and the more she thought about it, the more she liked that role. They say a first love is unforgettable… and true friendship… is eternal.

* * *

Tails had stopped trying to resist, instead he just let himself being shoved around. Wherever Knuckles had gone, he couldn't see any trace of the echidna. Currently he had other problems than once again playing referee between his two friends anyway.

Finding himself on a round space free of huts, Tails looked around. It seemed the entire village was up. "Umm… I have no idea what makes you think so, but I'm not a god or something…", he tried, gaining nothing like the desired reply, instead he found a whisper running through the native's lines at hearing him speak.

The fox groaned, racking his brains for a possible set of gestures to explain himself to them. Before he could quite get to a conclusion, a porcupine covered in pearls and feathers was approaching him, holding a strange looking object resembling a broken umbrella decorated with small gems out at him before holding it up at the sky, then turning back to the fox, once more offering him the thing with a demanding look.

Tails shook his head. "Whatever you want me to do; I can't do any magic…"

As he obviously lacked to do what he was asked, the porcupine suddenly looked rather desperate.

"Hey, no need to be sad…" His good nature getting through to him, Tails gave the stranger a smile, still looking out for a way out of this weird situation.

His 'way out of this' appeared in form of the mouse he had been talking to earlier, pushing his way through to the distressed looking ceremonial guy. A few minutes, lots of words Tails didn't understand and many 'oh's' and 'ah's' from around later, the gathering stopped, people turning around faces flushed in embarrassment while they all tried to pretend they were just here to go about their daily business.

Okito walked up to Tails. "I'm sorry."

Tails smiled a little. "No need to be, it's okay. Just a few years ago, I believed in Santa Claus."

The mouse laughed. "Though it's much longer ago in my case than yours, I still remember that too." He slightly shook his head. "Are you hungry?"

Tails nodded. "A little," he admitted. "But I gotta find Knuckles."

"Knuckles will be back." Okito smiled, gently putting a hand on Tails' back and guiding him through the village's narrow streets.

"What makes you think so?", Tails asked.

The mouse smirked. "He doesn't know where the ruins are."

* * *

Lying on a strange mixture of bed and hammock, resembling a large blanket spanned between four sticks at the edges, Sonic found his temper slowly calming down. In spite of its primitiveness, the bed was comfy, the air in the hut was cool and currently getting even fresher through small gusts blowing past the carpet-door.

It could be worse really, the blue hedgehog realized as a small piece of damp tissue was rested on his forehead. Tako-y, as Okito had introduced her, gave him a smile and stood up from where she'd been kneeling aside of him. Seeing Sonic move to sit up, she shook her head in protest and gestured for him to lie back down, then placed her left hand aside of her face and tilted her head against her palm.

Sonic nodded. Probably she was right. "I get it. I won't run off."

Holding her head still slightly tipped aside, but removing her hand, she seemed to study him for a moment, then nodded too and turned to leave.

"Hey! Wait a sec!", Sonic called after her, causing the young female to turn around with a questioning look. Once again smiling at her, Sonic said one more word hoping she would understand him someway. "Thanks." Being rewarded with another gentle smile, he knew she did understand.

Left alone, Sonic shifted his hands under his neck and stared up at the ceiling. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was stuck here for at least a day. Even worse was, one of his friends was about to run into something stupid, and he could do nothing about it. It wasn't that he was only angry with Knuckles, sure, the echidna was a stubborn, pigheaded idiot whenever something affected him in a closer than regular way, or worse maybe, affected his island or his ancestors and that shiny big rock of his. No, he was angry with himself for not being able to at least follow him and be able to rush them out of whatever trouble Eggman was up to.

Above his head, a few small sounds started to come from the wood the roof was made of; growing more and more until they became a rapid staccato of drumming accompanied by loud, rushing sounds. Strangely, the sound was nice. Sighing and for now surrendering to his fate, the blue hedgehog closed his eyes and listened to the soothing rhythm of a tropic downpour.

* * *

Knuckles had taken some time to blow off steam. To his surprise, nobody stopped him from wandering the village and the looks he got were mostly curious ones. None of the porcupines bothered him or said something as he left through the village entrance into the jungle again. Probably their retentiveness was up to the anger about Sonic still flashing clearly visible behind Knuckles' eyes, though.

The sky above, as far as he could see it through the treetops, had lost its blue color while they'd been in Okito's hut. With the quickness of the tropics, clouds had formed on the sky and just a few minutes after Knuckles had left the village with no actual goal in mind rain was gushing onto the plants of the jungle heavily enough to pass down to the ground without any trouble. It took only seconds until Knuckles was soaked.

He didn't mind. For several minutes he stood in the rain, letting if wash off the stickiness the sweat had left in his fur. It was relaxing and as the heat of the day cooled, the echidna slowly found his temper calming down as well. To be fair, he wouldn't want to be told to stay behind either. In so far, he could understand Sonic. Still, it was the right decision to leave the hedgehog behind. He was a quick healer, probably a day or two of downtime would do it and he could follow. It was just that Knuckles didn't want to waste a day or two. Eggman was here, Eggman had been on Angel Island, and nobody knew what he was up to. Knuckles had to know and he couldn't affort waiting. Maybe, in a fit shape, Sonic could take what Okito claimed was two and a half days of travel in a few hours. Supersonic speeds could get you there... But Knuckles couldn't run that fast. The sooner Knuckles wanted to get to Eggman, the sooner he had to leave. At least that was what he told himself.

When he returned to the village, he felt calmer and up to dealing with people again. Apparently he really looked more sociable again, a group of purcupines sitting in the shelter of a roof of sorts in front of a hut, looking into the rain, waved at him as he passed and offered him fruits. Knuckles accepted happily. Suddenly he felt hungry.

He found Tails in Okito's hut, also eating. The elder mouse didn't ask many questions, he just offered Knuckles a towel to dry himself off and let him dine in peace then. Knuckles eyed him secretly while he ate. There was something odd about him, something that made him like nobody else the echidna knew. In all truth though, Knuckles didn't know too many people.

When Knuckles told him he would leave in the morning, Okito made a short attempt asking him if he really couldn't wait until his friends could follow. Knuckles explained his reasons just briefly and Okito didn't say anything but that he'd talk to the chief and see Knuckles would be assigned a few porcupines as guides to point him in the right direction. No word fell about the argument he'd witnessed, neither did the mouse try dwelling into Knuckles' decision. Maybe he thought it none of his business. Or he'd understood it was hopeless trying to stop him and had decided to rather help in that case.

Tails apparently did think it was his business and tried to persuade Knuckles to stay and wait, but he turned quiet about it when Knuckles told him he couldn't. However, the fox insisted he'd talk to Sonic, and if he was honest with himself the guardian wanted to talk to him. Say sorry he'd lost his temper? Maybe. But when Knuckles entered the hut they'd been given to stay in, he found Sonic fast asleep. He didn't try to wake him. The hedgehog needed his rest more than Knuckles' words.

With the first light of the next morning, Knuckles quietly crept out of the hut, only to find out that Tails was already up. The echidna wondered if he'd really stood up that early just to say goodbye and assure him they'd be coming after him as soon as they could. But no matter how strange this idea seemed to Knuckles, something about Tails standing in the village entrance and waving after him as he left together with Tako-y and two other members of the tribe made Knuckles feel better about it. He kept looking back until the village and fox were swallowed up by the jungle.

* * *

The sound of jet engines in the sky let Robotnik look up. A smile curved his lips and he ran a hand through his enormous moustache. Finally, the explosives had arrived and he could begin with the blasting.

The ruins were remains of a typical old echidnean city. Most of the smaller buildings had been overgrown completely by jungle plants. Only the temples clearly stood out between the trees on a sort of clearing. The lack of trees here had even allowed patches of grass to grow.

Robotnik didn't mean to blow up the ruins of course. Although the idea sounded kind of fun to him and as he supervised the unloading process of the explosives he'd ordered from his main base, he had to admit he'd probably also have enough of the stuff to blast the entire place to smithereens. Of course, that wasn't the plan.

For months already, Robotnik conducted excavations like this one all over Mobius in old echidnaen settlements. He was following hints he had discovered more or less by chance, hints pointing at 'the most powerful creation' some echidna had made in his life. Unfortunately, that was the only thing Robotnik had seen of this powerful creation so far. But he was in good spirits, the last time the old echidnas had called something 'powerful', he'd discovered the Chaos creature. That it had turned out mad and horribly disobedient wasn't exactly the echidnas' fault.

In all honesty, Robotnik didn't expect to run into this powerful object by chance. Something that had remained hidden for years surely wouldn't be easy to discover if you didn't know where to look and how. No, Robotnik wasn't out for the treasure itself. He was hoping to find more relics from the younger past, from the time after the downfall of Pachacmac's clan. He was stuck with stone tablets full of hieroglyphs and symbols his translation algorithms had failed to make sense of for weeks. He needed more input to feed the programs, more data to analyze the dialect. Unfortunately, little was know about the last centuries of the echidna people, and the best Robotnik could do was probe in the dark and hope he found something.

Another unfortunate obstacle in his search was the condition most ruins were in. Decades had passed, decay had dug its hungry claws into the remains of the city, trees were growing out of buildings and many rooms were buried under tons of earth. The explosives were the only way to get through quickly. Of course, they could only be used with caution.

The moustached scientist took in the makeshift storage area he'd set up between the ancient buildings. At least he wouldn't have to worry about running out of supplies now... He grinned and ordered a group of Egg Pawns to begin with the blasting. He'd get through this puzzle, and if he had to blow up the entire complex... and probably a few others.


	13. How To Run Into Trouble

Few words were spoken as Tako-y and two of her brothers led their new red friend, Knukkls or however his name was actually pronounced, along small, rarely frequented pathways. Only a few meters away, you wouldn't be able to guess there was a path at all snaking through the thick undergrowth. Knukkls was quick-footed and seemed to excell at stamina. Like all of her people, the three porcupines were used to travelling through the jungle anyway and the group progressed quickly and without any trouble at first.

It was a quiet journey, the porcupine hunters knew the way in all detail and the only way they could communicate with Knukkls was through gestures. Tako-y always made sure they understood each other, she still felt odd about the misunderstandings the other day. She kept observing Knukkls, his strange clothing, his different spines, his earless head, the long, bent tail. Aside of a few small things, he didn't look very different from her people, even the way he moved was just as powerful and swiftly. She thought he had to be a good hunter at home, with his tribe.

The longer they walked, the more Tako-y regretted that Okito wasn't younger, that he couldn't come with them. Without him to translate, there was no actual way for her to talk to Knukkls, and there were so many things she would have liked to ask him. What the place he came from looked like, how big his tribe was, who his friends and family were. Tako-y had always been curious about things, even as a small girl she had sat at the fire when Okito had told stories about the world he came from, sometimes she had stayed and listened until she'd fallen asleep on the floor because it had become too late. Okito's stories were fascinating, stories of houses higher than the trees around her village, with rooms big enough to fit all members of her tribe in with ease. He had told her about pathways as broad as the big river, with carts that could move on their own. Lights that didn't come from fires. Ways to talk to people that were many days' walks away as if they stood right next to you.

Ever since she had heard about these things, she thought that one day she would want to visit Okito's home. Knukkls, or his two friends Sonikk and Tails, could have surely told her more about their home and it saddened her that she couldn't talk to him. When she returned home, she would have a lot of new questions to ask her elder friend. Okito had always answered her questions. Unlike many other people she knew, he had never seemed annoyed by a lot of questions. He claimed asking questions was the only way to learn new things.

After a day of walking they camped next to a creek and Tako-y passed her watch imagining large houses and giant pathways. She smiled as she looked at the sleeping Knukkls. In a way, she now agreed with Okito's words to her. It had been good to bring them to the village, even though the idea had come from a shameful error of judgement on her part. Not only had she seen now three more living proofs that there was a world outside their jungle, through the arrival of the three her people had learned that not angered gods, but a person was behind the strange events. Okito said this person's actions had scared the animals away. Knukkls was going to find this person and Okito had said once Sonikk and Tails also got to find this person, he would probably leave again and everything would be back to normal.

When they resumed their journey in the next morning, things quickly got even more abnormal than they'd been the past few days. Not a single animal could be heard in the jungle around, not even birds screamed overhead.

And then the noise started. It was like a boom of thunder, but it didn't come from above and the sky was clear of clouds. The sound rolled through the ground, hard and loud, and seemed to shake even the trees. Her two brothers worried it might be the gods anyway and it was a warning not to go on and enter the sacred temples when it wasn't the time. Tako-y didn't believe that. She couldn't ask him, but she guessed Knukkls knew the sound and he wasn't scared when he heard it. If at all, he looked angry about it, but he seemed a person to make angry easily...

The group stopped when more of the strange booming noises came. Her brothers outright refused to go any further and a heated discussion followed. Tako-y had said she would bring Knukkls to the ruins, she wasn't planning on letting a bit of noise stop her just because it scared certain people when something happened they didn't understand.

In the end, it was Knukkls who stopped the argument by gesturing to them he would go on alone. Tako-y offered to come with him, two were better than one, but he shook his head and waved her off, albeit smiling as he did so. It wasn't lack of gratitude, he just didn't want to force them. So they had a short goodbye and parted ways.

Tako-y looked after him as he continued alone along the narrow path. She wasn't worried that he'd get lost, from here on the way was easy to find and she thought he was clever enough to get along. But she felt bad about letting him go on his own. Still, it had been him who'd insisted she also went back home. Maybe he liked meeting this strange person causing their trouble on his own. She didn't know and she didn't understand. But the world was full of things she didn't understand.

A firm grin set on her face as she followed her brother back towards their home. One day, she would understand all these things. One day she would.

* * *

The late next morning found Knuckles creeping through a thick piece of shrubbery, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the ruins in front of him. Tako-y and two others had led him half of the way and then pointed him in the right direction for the rest of the trip. Knuckles supposed they didn't want to breach their sacred place, the two guys were scared of the explosions, and he didn't really mind it. He guessed they should have made the way back by now and would be able to tell Sonic and Tails the way as well. Knuckles wasn't sure on it, but with two days of rest the blue hedgehog should be a lot better and the two would probably be able to catch up with him rather quickly. After all, Sonic was the fastest thing alive.

Shaking off his musings, Knuckles returned his attention to what lay before him. From the looks of it the ones who once built these temples had left by at least several hundreds of years. Knuckles knew quite a lot about his people's art and architecture, and what he was seeing here wasn't much younger than the ruins on Angel Island.

The explosions had stopped yesterday in the evening and at the moment things were quiet. However, he wasn't the first one to visit the place in a while, the long grass that wildly grew between the ruins' walls was brushed down by something that couldn't possibly have been the rain, and some of the roots that supported larger trees that had conquered a place on top of the ancient buildings looked like they had only recently been torn.

Slowly the echidna stood up and without making more noise than the jungle around made anyway walked over to the nearest walls. He followed it up to the corner of the small house it had once been, leaned against it and carefully took a look around.

The space between the smaller ruins and the bigger buildings Knuckles had already identified as some form of temple complex was about twenty meters wide with only one tall pillar in the middle of it. But the echidna didn't take his time to regard the ornaments decorating the thing. The complete square was crowded with robots, walking around in clearly defined patterns, scanning the ground with things that looked to Knuckles like misbuilt fishing rods. He was sure Tails would have been able to explain to him what they really were, although the echidna wasn't too interested.

Intent on trying to find out what the robots might be searching around here Knuckles realized too late the steps that scraped over the ground behind him. By the time he did, he whirled around only to find himself face-to-face with a good dozen robots and their egg-shaped creator in his hovering pod.

"Hello! If this isn't my old friend Knuckles," Eggman grinned. His hand reached up to stretch his moustache. "So I assume you and your little friends managed to land that wreck of a plane anyway. Or did you have any eject seats installed?"

Knuckles didn't answer, instead fisted his hands and ground his teeth.

"Very talkative today, I see." Eggman shrugged. "Well, well. I very much hope you'll change that notion soon. 'Cause you are going to help me out now."

"Not in your dreams, Eggman." Knuckles' brows narrowed. He was sure on that point. He had sworn himself not to ever work with Eggman again.

"We'll see about that." The human shrugged again. "Arrest him!"

The last command was addressed to his robots. Knuckles had just moved to strike the first one to his right when he was rammed by another one and ungratefully landed on his back. Staring up into the glowing pole of a laser gun two thoughts almost simultaneously flashed through Knuckles' head. The first one was 'SHIT!', the second an almost gloating little voice saying 'You should have listened to Sonic.'

* * *

All Espio could do was shout out a short warning to his team when they rounded a large piece of rock in midst of oversized green shrubbery and suddenly stood face to face with ten badniks.

"Charmy, get Cream and Cheese out of here," he commanded. The little rabbit girl complained, but Charmy had already grabbed her arm and was yanking on it. Knowing the kids out of the way, the chameleon shot a brief glance at the pink hedgehog girl at his side. She'd already taken on some sort of fighting stance and retrieved that giant hammer from… yeah, where'd she even take it from?

Deciding to keep this question for after the fight, Espio pulled out his shuriken stars and charged at the first best robot. The sharp weapon hit it right in his left optic, causing sparks to fly and then the robot keeled over like a falling tree.

Flinging another pair of stars at two other bots, the ninja distractedly noticed the loud crashing sound that told him Amy was as busy as he was. Her high-pitched battle cry almost hurt in his ears, but another satisfactory clank speaking of hammer meeting metal armor followed.

Diving past a laser shot, Espio reached out for one of the fallen enemies to pull out his weapons to refill his stock. He rolled over his shoulder, stopped on his knees, his left hand stabilizing his stand, and threw the just retrieved piece of sharp metal at the robot having fired at him. It toppled as cinematically as the last.

Standing and spinning around on the spot to find more enemies to fight, he found he didn't have to. Amy had already charged at the last bot standing. Her short run-up ended in a move that resembled a cartwheel, then she used her large hammer as something like an athlete's pole, catapulting herself into the air and coming down hammer first on the robot.

Cocking an eyeridge, Espio regarded the flattened machine. Amy leisurely shouldered her weapon, one boot in the robot's chest and turned around to him, grinning.

"We sure showed them who's boss, didn't we?"

Espio smirked. "We did. Good job, Rose."

She smiled. "You too, Ninja." For a moment her green eyes looked at him, then her smile broadened to a wide grin again. "You know what? We make a great team."

The chameleon didn't reply, but silently acknowledged she was right when she turned away to get Charmy and Cream. "Oh, Amy?"

"Yes?" The hedgehog turned over her shoulder.

"Where do you get these hammers from?"

Amy laughed. "A lady has to keep a few secrets…" Blinking an eye at him playfully, she turned around again and disappeared in the bushes.

Espio shook his head. _What did I expect?_

* * *

It seemed the complete population of the village had gathered to say goodbye to them. Though they had stayed for only two and a half days, and Knuckles had left right in the morning after they came here, the porcupines must have gotten to like them a lot. What might be partly up to the fact Tails had found a way to effectively repair a broken dam for them even without any proper tools he could have used.

Sonic smiled at everybody he could see, waving his arm in goodbye. The bandage around his head was gone, so were the headaches and dizziness. All that remained of the injury was a long scar that was already starting to vanish under newly growing fur.

Aside of the hedgehog, Tails just smiled, hovering half a meter above the ground, much to their new friends' amusement.

Sonic stopped waving, turning back to the old mouse. "Okay, we really have to go now. We gotta catch up with Knuckles before he does something silly."

"Will you come back for a visit once in a while?", Okito asked.

Sonic nodded. "Why not? We use to travel a lot. I guess when we're passing by your place we'll stop and say hi."

The mouse nodded. "Goodbye then, and good luck for whatever you might be going to do."

"The first thing we're going to do is running," Sonic noticed, turning to Tails and grinning. "You want a ride? We gotta juice."

Tails' blue eyes went wide with awe. "You mean… like we used to do when I was…. small?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, very small really. Think you can still take it?"

Tails grinned back at the hedgehog. "Think you can get us real fast in this jungle?"

The blue hedgehog knocked his knuckles against his brow to prove his head was all set again. "I'm great now, and I've run other jungles, haven't I?"

"You sure have," Tails nodded, landing on the ground only to climb onto Sonic's back. The hedgehog smiled, finding his little bro still remembered how to grab a hold on a hedgehog's back without meeting any of his quills the hard way. They bother realized however that Sonic's headspines had grown quite a lot in length since Tails had last had a piggy-back ride… years ago. "All ready," he told the hedgehog anyway once he'd safely settled himself, and his tone told Sonic he was looking forwards to the ride.

Sonic waved again. "See ya all. And thanks for everything!" The last wave smoothly morphed into the start of a run. Sonic once circled the group, then he shot off into the distance, the wind in his wake tearing at the plants next to the narrow path.

* * *

Vector had lost track of time long ago. He knew from the change of daylight to darkness that days had passed since he had been caught. Strangely, he'd grown almost used to the spinning. After the first day, the nausea went away. Apparently, his body had adapted to being turned head over heels all the time.

It was when it suddenly stopped that he suddenly felt dizzy again. There was little warning before the robot's force field suddenly released him. He yelped as gravity got a grip on him and he fell – but no near as long as expected. The ground was merely a meter beneath him. He'd not even noticed the robot descending.

Now the crocodile suddenly sat on flat, unmoving ground again for the first time in days. And his body felt like this ground was shifting and tilting. Vector held his head with one hand, using the other to stabilize himself and sit upright on the grass.

He looked around, still dizzy. Where was he?

The air was hot and humid, sun blazing down from a cloudless sky. In the distance, a group of ruins sat in midst of a green meadow, surrounded by thick jungle. He himself sat on the edge of that meadow, in the middle of a dozen Egg Pawns. Egg Pawns with guns that were all pointing at his chest.

"Ah, look who's been coming to pay me a nice little visit," a gloating, familiar voice boomed from his left and the robots moved out of the way to let their creator past. "If it ain't Vector, the master detective."

"Dr. Eggman!" Vector ground his large jaw. "You still owe us some money…"

"Oh, I'm sorry I don't have anything with me right now." The bald human laughed, gesturing towards the ruins. "You see, I happen to be a little busy, there is some treasure I gotta find. With it, I will finally rule the world!"

"You stole Misses Vanilla's belongings." The crocodile slowly got up, still swaying a little, but his eyes shot daggers at Robotnik. "Hand them back and I'll forget about the money you owe the agency."

"Aw, you see, my reptile friend, I really need these objects. But since you're here, you can sit by and watch the excavations. And the beginning of my empire. That's the least I can do for you." Robotnik laughed shortly, then gestured at his robots. "Restrain him over there, where he can watch the work. Someone witnessing the greatness of my plans is always a pleasure to have around."

A few of the robots began pushing the crocodile towards the ruins.

"You must excuse me now, I have some work to coordinate." Robotnik smiled at the prisoner and turned around.

Vector glared after him until he was tied to a kind of pillar. He shifted in his bonds, trying to loosen them and make his escape. Neither of the robots around seemed to pay much of attention to him anymore; they were all busy searching the ruins for – whatever they were searching for.

Actually, Vector could care less about Eggman's intentions at the moment. He had to escape first, then he could find out where Eggman kept Vanilla's belongings. He was sure Espio and Charmy were out there somewhere, searching for him and trying to solve their case. The Chaotix had a job. And no matter the difficulties they encountered, this time they would _do_ their job.


	14. A Blast Of Fate

Every living creature would have lost a lot of its strength over the time holding forty kilo of in earnest struggling echidna. The two robots that held the bond guardian however didn't know tiredness; their servos resisted Knuckles' futile attempts to free himself with the same ease as two hours ago.

Knuckles gave up after having exhausted himself. It was no use. His pride was screaming at him for hanging limply between the robots that held his arms and feet, but no matter how loud his sense of honor would complain, his body's voice was stronger at the moment. Perhaps it was also the wiser one.

So he just hung, his fur dripping with sweat in the heat, and watched Eggman's bots searching around. He got bored of it after a while. Closing his eyes, he didn't even see the second prisoner a group of robots brought and tied to a pillar at the other side of the temple area.

* * *

The jungle trees were blazing by so fast Tails couldn't really see anything but a blur of greens. He also didn't hear anything really, just the rushing of wind in his ears. Last time he'd been riding on Sonic's back while the hedgehog ran had been four years ago or something, and either Tails' senses totally played tricks on him or Sonic was a lot faster now than he'd been back then. It would make sense if he got faster as he grew up, Tails guessed.

Still, even last time he'd wondered how in Chaos' name Sonic saw where he was going. Did he also see nothing but a blur of the world rushing past? Probably not, he'd totally run into stuff... Tails wanted to know what he saw then, how his speed looked to Sonic himself.

But he'd delay that particular question to a more convenient time. Right now, Tails could tell through the hedgehog's rapid breathing that he was really going as fast as he could for a longer time and he didn't want to disturb him. Not that he could have heard him anyway over the noise of the wind.

They covered what Okito had claimed was more than a two days walk in mere hours. It told Tails that Sonic had really gotten faster, that his concussion had really healed, and that the blue hedgehog was really worried about having Knuckles go alone. He'd been really mad at him the first morning after he left, but after he'd calmed down it had become more and more obvious to Tails that he was a little concerned. Tails wasn't too sure if they should be worried about Knuckles, the echidna could take care of himself. At least, that was what logic told him. Tails was worried anyway too. It was the same when Sonic left for something like that. He knew they both could take care of themselves and worrying wasn't necessary. He worried anyway.

And apparently, also Sonic could worry about someone, although he didn't say it.

When Sonic finally slowed to a stop and let Tails down, the fox need to lean against a tree for a minute.

"Too fast for ya?" Sonic grinned.

"It's not the speed," Tails insisted. "If you only could start changing directions every few seconds. Can't you run in a straight line, just for a minute?"

The blue hedgehog frowned at this. "You know, now that you pointed me at it... I don't think I remember having ran in a straight line for a minute in my whole life."

Tails groaned. "Tell me about it..."

Sonic chuckled, but he looked a little concerned. "You're not gonna get sick on me, right?"

"No, I'm okay." Tails carefully let go of the tree again and looked around. "We're there yet?"

Sonic pointed off to the left. "I figured we couldn't be far."

Following his friend's outstretched arm, Tails spotted the stone wall hiding in the bushes. "How'd you even see that thing at this crazy speed?"

Sonic shrugged and his tone was dry matter-of-fact. "It's not green like the rest."

Tails stared, trying to figure if the hedgehog was pulling his leg, then he shrugged it off. "Shall we look around?"

"Yup!" Sonic quickly disappeared into the jungle and Tails had to hurry after him so they wouldn't leave each other.

It took only a few minutes until the two discovered more ruins sitting on a large clearing, and a whole lot of Eggman robots walking around in between. To get a better look around, Tails took Sonic's hands to fly up and they found themselves a lookout spot up on a high branch in one of the trees surrounding the ruins.

"Wow, look at all those robots, Tails. I wonder what Eggman's up to with them..."

"They're searching for something." Tails pointed. "Look over there, they got a lot of machines for digging... and a lot of explosives. I think he's blasting his way through the collapsed parts of the buildings. What do you think these excavations are for?"

"No idea, little bro." A frown was on Sonic's face. "But I found our knuckleheaded friend. There, those robots are trying to toast him in the sun."

Now Tails spotted him too. Between the numerous red Egg Pawns, not even the echidna's usually so striking red fur stuck out. Two of the robots held Knuckles between them on wrists and ankles. The echidna hung unmoving between them. "Do you think they hurt him?"

Sonic's green eyes narrowed as he tried to get a better look. "I dunno. He doesn't really look hurt. Maybe he's just taking a break from trying to escape them. But if they really hurt him, they're gonna be sorry."

Tails scanned the ruins. "There's Eggman!"

The crazy scientist was sitting in his pod-shaped floating vehicle, commanding a group of robots around that carried boxes with more explosives back to where the rest was stored. Dr. Eggman didn't bother with Knuckles as they walked past him. He seemed more interested in his robots at the moment than his prisoner.

Sonic nudged Tails' arm. "Let's get back down and look around the other side of these old temple things. And then we'll have to find a way to get out old Knucklehead."

Tails nodded. "I wonder how he got himself caught."

Sonic shrugged. "He can tell us later. Come on."

Tails nodded again, got hold of Sonic's hands and they both descended back to the ground and crept into the jungle bushes again, closing in on the ruins and the robots.

* * *

Espio pointed forwards, his voice but a whisper. "We were right."

Amy grimaced. "It's robots everywhere. Oh, how I hate these things. Can't Eggman build something else?"

"Like… a beautiful chao garden!", Cream suggested.

"Chao chao!" Cheese fluttered happily around the rabbit girl.

"I like robots. I think they're kinda cool," Charmy complained.

Espio frowned. Silly discussion topic again. Something about kids was strange. "Be quiet, alright?"

"Are we gonna free Vector now?" Amy pulled out her hammer, a small grin on her face.

"Not yet." Espio shook his head. "We're not the only ones around here. If these two make some trouble, things might be easier for us."

The other three followed the chameleon's outstretched arm. Seeing the blue hedgehog and orange fox slip out of a bush and behind the nearest ruin, Cream squealed with joy.

"Mister Sonic! Tails! Hello!"

Green eyes wide with shock Amy clasped her hand over Cream's mouth. "Quiet! What if the robots hear us?"

The little bunny slumped visibly. "Oh. I'm sorry."

Fortunately the robots didn't seem to pay much attention to anything but the ruins themselves. Sonic and Tails had turned around at Cream's shouting and now carefully came over to them.

The blue hedgehog looked between the four. "Hey, what are you guys all doing here?"

"We're freeing Vector!", Charmy blurted out.

"He got captured on a mission," Espio added, but he didn't get far in his explanations.

"And we're helping!" Cream smiled happily.

"I think we make great detectives," Amy added, trying herself at giving Sonic a smile.

The blue hedgehog eyed her suspiciously. She hadn't glomped him yet, or anything else like that, and the male hedgehog clearly didn't trust the peace.

Amy just looked back; trying to do what she'd avoided during the past few days. Feel. Feel what there was between her and him; feel what had been there, for her at least, over all the years. She didn't know what she had expected, looking into his deep emerald eyes. Should she be angry at him? Sad? She didn't know, and looking into his eyes didn't help much initially.

But slowly his glance softened on her, as if he felt her inner struggle, the suspicious look easing away, leaving something behind she'd rarely seen in those green eyes when they lay on _her_. He was giving her that almost hidden look he would have on all people he cared for on occasions; that look that spoke much more than words ever could about his affinities. A look she'd craved to see lying on her for so long, but for other reasons.

Unable to look away for another moment of eternity, Amy was almost happy to know he still gave her butterflies… there was something about him that made him inspiring, motivating… But not in a way she felt like she just had to tackle-hug him. Butterflies, yes… but a whole new form of them. Right in that moment, Sonic's eyes told her something she'd doubted on many occasions in her life. He cared for her, and upon knowing that, Amy gave herself and him a silent promise. She'd be there if he needed a friend and she just knew he'd be there for her. For the first moment in her life, Amy Rose considered what so suddenly stood nearly openly between them to be far more valuable than anything she'd strived to get of him and that he being him had never been able to provide.

Sonic smiled, blinking an eye at her before looking away, and turned around to peek out of their shelter, skipping on the depth that had been there wordlessly, and somehow Amy was grateful. "Got a plan yet?"

Espio shrugged, throwing a glance at Amy before answering Sonic's question. "I can just walk over there and untie him, but to get away we'll need some distraction."

Sonic nodded. "Okay, I'd say we help you free Vector and then get over and free Knuckles."

Espio ridged an eyebrow. "How'd ol' Knuckles get caught?"

Tails shrugged. "We don't know, but he's held over there. We spotted him right when we came here a few minutes ago. Red fur, you know."

"Alright." The cameleon nodded. "Think you can stir up some trouble with that thing of yours?" He turned to Amy.

The pink hedgehog grinned, pulling out her Piko-Piko hammer. "Of course."

Sonic smirked. "Alright, then I'd say you kick some bots over there and I'll try it at the other side of this old piece of houseroom. That should get you all the free space you need."

Espio inclined his head. "Thank you."

If to get some distance between himself and Amy Rose holding a hammer or just out of natural impatience was hard to tell, but Sonic was already gone. Not wasting any time, Amy took off in the other direction.

As soon as he heard the first metallic bangs, Espio told the three younger ones to wait for him, camouflaged himself and silently walked out onto the clearing with the temples.

"Don't scream," he whispered as he approached Vector. "I'll cut the bonds."

"Espio!" Vector turned his large head aside at hearing his colleague's voice. "I knew you would come!"

"Spare us the talk." Espio got out one of his shuriken stars and used the blade to loosen the rope that tied the crocodile's hands. He looked around while he took care of the other bonds. "We're not being watched. Follow me and we're outta here."

Vector nodded, not complaining when Espio took a hold of his arm and pulled him over to the bush the rest of the group was hiding in. Also Sonic and Amy turned up again.

The crocodile was currently struggling to pipe down Charmy, the small bee was glad to see him again and wouldn't keep quiet about it. With Charmy on his arm, Vector suggested to retreat deeper into the jungle. Taking Cream's hand, Amy followed quickly.

Sure that they were safe, Espio allowed himself a smile, remembering to turn visible again. Sometimes he could kinda forget that.

* * *

Sonic watched the freed crocodile guide Amy, Cream and Charmy towards the relative safety of the forest around. Having just escaped himself Vector didn't want any of the others of his group endangered. Espio however remained with Sonic and Tails.

"Aren't you with them?", Sonic wondered, cocking an eyebrow at the ninja.

"I'll be soon," Espio replied. "If you want to get out Knuckles you might have some use for me and my skills."

Sonic shrugged. "Why not. You're in."

Tails pointed. "There he is!"

At the other side of the ruins, two robots carried the bound echidna from the left to the right where they disappeared behind a building.

"This'll be a cinch," Sonic said, stretching his legs. He was just ready to shoot off and rush Knuckles out of the robots' grasp, when Epsio's hand closed tightly around his upper arm. Sonic was about to ask what was going on when the complete part of the ruins they had been watching was swallowed up by a fireball. The shockwave of the sudden explosion was strong enough to throw the small group off their feet.

Sonic stood within a couple of second, disbelievingly staring at the cloud of fire and smoke slowly ascending from the remains of the ancient temples. If it was to be called remains at all anymore… it was merely a large hole in the ground. Somehow it seemed the realization needed a little longer than his perception. Knuckles had been over there…

"The explosives Eggman used for the excavations must've sparked somehow," Tails said while pricking himself up. Then he looked at Sonic and the surprise on his face rapidly turned into shock. "Did you see…?"

Sonic shook his head. Rushing over to the large crater, he stared down into the hole the explosion had torn into the ground. A few burned heaps of metal possibly indicated there had been robots standing here. The ruins were gone, leaving only trails of dust, pieces of stone and loosely distributed ash behind.

"Where's Knuckles?", Tails asked fearfully.

Sonic just numbly shook his head, in spite of the tropic heat feeling as though a bucket of icy water had been dumped over his head, the cold rolling slowly down his spine, freezing him as it went. There were a thousand things Sonic had thought you'd feel in a situation like this one, but he only really felt frozen, for the moment too shoked to feel anything else. There was no way Knuckles could have survived that. But he was unable to find any words for what was clear, his mouth dry and his tongue sticking to the roof of it. Tails seemed to have gotten to the conclusion himself anyway, he sobbed quietly. Sonic pushed past the numbness in his body, reached out and pulled his little brother into a hug, to equal parts to try and comfort Tails and himself.

Wordlessly the hedgehog watched as if in slow motion, like in a bad movie, how Espio silently knelt down aside of them, resting his brow on one knee, his fisted hands on the ground at his sides in a pose of sorrowful devotion. Knuckles had also been his friend, Sonic realized.

And now, he was gone.


	15. In The Enemy's Hands

Wordlessly Eggman gestured for one of the robots occupying the base to get the bundle of echidna out of his floating vehicle. Knuckles didn't resist; he'd decided to spare his strength for a better chance to escape and for now try to get something out of this whole situation.

"You know, you should be grateful," Eggman said, climbing out of his flying pot himself. Studying first the mobile and then his prisoner, he shook his head. "I will let some robots repair the damage. What do you think? Maybe I should try a new color of paint?"

Knuckles didn't move a single muscle of his face. He didn't really care what Eggman did to his flying thing. But there was something else that really interested him. And only one person here to answer him. "Why did you blow up the ruins? They are thousands of years old relics of high value! There was no need for that!"

"Oh, you think I _wanted_ to blow them up? All this interesting history and dozens of my own creations on top of it? Idiotic." The human chuckled. "The explosion was an accident. A perhaps very unfortunate one; it might have destroyed multiple helpful clues. But luck is with me as it seems. I got you for it."

"I won't help you with anything," Knuckles remarked sternly. "I said so before. Do what you want, but don't expect any of my help."

"Are you sure?" Eggman waved a hand and a small robot rolled out of a tiny opening in a wall, balancing a tablet with a bottle of water. "I assume it was very hot back there, all in the sun? How long did I leave you there again?"

Knuckles bit his lip. Eggman was right thinking he wanted the water. Truth be told, he wanted it badly. The useless fighting against the bonds and the robots combined with the constant heat had not only left him to be a slightly exhausted echidna, no, he also was a very thirsty echidna. But there was no way in hell he would work with the enemy just to satisfy some simple physical need. "I said I don't help you," Knuckles said again, but the words came out less forcefully than he wanted them to.

"Your decision." Eggman smiled. "I'll be a good host and give you a chance to think about it again."

The echidna just gave the scientist a glare as he was carried off. Two minutes and many long, strange corridors later Knuckles was unceremoniously dumped into a small room. It was almost sterilely clean; the floor, walls, ceiling and door all made from the same, slightly whitish silver metal. A window didn't exist, but that wasn't really a surprise given an underground building. Instead, there was a second, though much smaller door in one of the walls.

As good as he could manage bound like a package Knuckles shifted against the wall, and thought. How badly did Eggman need his help? And what would he try to make him help him? He couldn't keep him without water for long. If he died of thirst he wasn't much of a help at all, so the threat of not giving him the water couldn't really scare the echidna. But how far would the human go? Torture him? Dose him with some strange drug to make him tell something? Knuckles frowned, somehow this didn't seem much like Eggman's style. Eggman did things with boom and robots and lots of show. Nothing as creepy as torture or drugs. Right?

Knuckles shook his head to himself. This was leading him nowhere. Better think of what Eggman wanted him for, what he could be after. But this train of thoughts also quickly proved a dead end.

* * *

Spending the next hours trying to find a way out of this mess he was in now, Knuckles was almost pleased about the distraction when the door opened and Eggman entered the cell accompanied by a single robot that stepped in front of Knuckles and froze.

"So? Did you change your mind?", the human asked, looking down on his prisoner.

Knuckles shook his head. "No. I won't help you." Hearing his own voice the echidna wanted to scold his throat for sounding so hoarse and dry. Of course that was useless.

"You know, that's really sad. We would make a nice team, you and me." The robotist closed the distance between them and knelt at Knuckles' side, pulling a thing about as big as his hand out of a pocket in his suit. A slim, almost rectangular stone carved with echidnaen hieroglyphs. "Maybe this will catch your interest." His finger slid along the two lines of small symbols. " _This path_ ," Eggman started telling Knuckles what his programs had translated, " _will lead you to the most powerful thing I ever created in all my life, to my legacy for the future, to the holy Emerald's safety._ "

Knuckles frowned, did his best to hide it; his eyes scanning the text again, and he tried not to let them rest on the same sign for too long.

Eggman was studying his expression curiously. "Interesting, isn't it? I found this stone in the Mystic Ruins, then after weeks of search several more all over Mobius with the same kind of less old echidna language than you find in the most ruins. It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, Knuckles. A chase from one high point of echidna culture to the other. The legendary hunt for the treasure at the end of the rainbow… But despite my efforts, I still am not sure what brilliant powerful treasure I am searching for exactly, and where to find it. The computers get messed up with this different dialect we have here, there are symbols to which I cannot find a meaning, but without them it is hard to get ahead. You can read this, can't you? Better than any machine."

Knuckles didn't answer, didn't move his face a single bit, he didn't even look at Eggman.

The human sighed. "Still stubborn. Guardian's pride. Pathetic." He stood up. "But it's your choice. We'll see how long you can keep it. I have time and patience. I have a large base to enjoy myself, and if I want to I go out and have some fun there." Eggman leaned down to Knuckles again. "You've always lived outside, haven't you? How long will your mind stand this confined place? No sunlight, no stars, no day periods, nowhere to go and nothing to do… What do you think, my friend?" Eggman chuckled lightly when Knuckles refused to reply again.

Putting the stone back into his pocket, the scientist stepped away from the echidna. "Untie him," he ordered his robot.

Surprised Knuckles raised a brow as the Egg Pawn leaned down to him, using its lasers to cut the thin steel wire ropes that were entwined all around the echidna's body, not caring much when the lasers burned some skin and fur too. Knuckles kept perfectly still, thinking that struggling in the worst case could end in him losing a limb.

Within less than ten seconds Knuckles was free and carefully shifted to a more comfortable position, his muscles stiff and sore and his arms and legs without feeling other than pins and needles. Unable to properly move yet and cause any threat to his captor the echidna just glared up at him.

Eggman's lips curved into a smile and he lifted a hand to stretch his large moustache. "You are being ungrateful again. I'm giving you the chance to move around in this room, don't I? We both know that things would get nasty otherwise, don't we?"

Once more Knuckles remained his silence and Eggman shrugged. "Well, I'll return when you are a little more talkative I guess." He turned around and walked towards the door, but turned over his shoulder at half of the way. "Oh, before you get any bad ideas… The walls are a meter thick strong steel, the door is made from a material capable of wistanding an explosion. We don't want you hurting yourself. And if you think your friends will come and get you out… they won't search for you anytime again. You only got me." He smiled. "Goodnight, my friend."

Knuckles still glared at the door even as Eggman had left with his robot, then realized how stupid that was and switched his attention to himself, massaging his hands and wriggling his toes until finally feeling returned to them.

Slowly he stood up, walking over to the second smaller door. It startled him by ghostly sliding open as he neared it. Knuckles walked backwards again and after a couple seconds the door closed, only to reopen when he approached another time. Automatic doors. He'd seen these before in the cities, and on Space Colony Ark.

Making his way over to the door completely, he found it to be the way to a small bathroom. Knuckles reached for the water-tap that sat over a small sink, turning a knob and finding water coming out. He gathered some in his palm, cautiously smelled it to try and find out if he could drink it. It smelled of nothing. On the island, waters smelled and tasted different depending on where they came from. The ones in the forest tasted best, while the brooks that surfaced near Lava Reef had the bitter aftertaste of sulphur.

His thirst finally got the better of him and Knuckles tested a bit of the water. It tasted as boring as it smelled, but it was all he had, so better than nothing, right?

After quenching himself the echidna used the water to clean himself, then he walked back into the other room. Thoughtfully he looked around in the four-by-four, blank room. Sitting down cross-legged in the middle of it, he returned his mind back to the point he'd been at before Eggman had come in.

His way out of here. But no matter his efforts, his thoughts kept returning to the stone Eggman had shown him. And his translation of it. Finally Knuckles allowed himself a small smirk. This one, small symbol had caught his attention not for no reason. It said 'precious', not 'powerful', though it very much resembled the old hieroglyph for 'powerful' or 'strong'. If Eggman made mistakes with things so easy, he could at least hope he would make some more.

* * *

To Knuckles' surprise, and admittedly subtle relief as well, Eggman didn't return to torture him for information or something. At least… not actively. He left him alone for what felt like a long time at first, alone with himself and the blank, empty confinement. Without admitting it to his captor, Knuckles knew he had been right about being locked up like that, with no reference, not the smallest idea about the world, the life outside and behind the walls of his prison getting to him.

Knuckles passed a fair amount of his time meditating, feeling out for the Master Emerald's energy, its echo in his mind. It was there alright, distant, faint and hard to track, not near enough to actually draw on the chaos power, but it was there. An anchor that kept his mind from slipping. A few times he considered trying the impossible and guiding the island here and dropping it onto Eggman's blasted head. But even putting the too great distance aside, the result would include himself being crushed along with the enemy, and as long as the subtlest hope of escape still existed Knuckles didn't want to sacrifice his life and the island.

In order to stay able to fight and escape eventually, as soon as he would be getting a chance, the echidna did some exercising. Push-ups, even runs around his small cell… Aside of the fact he could maintain himself that way, the training offered something to do, some raw, simple action. A welcome change from sitting around and thinking until his brains smoked.

While he had as much water as he could ask for, food was a completely different matter and hunger hit quickly. And it hit hard. Stubborn as he was, Knuckles fought to ignore it, only at the time when he became tired and curled up on the floor to sleep he clutched his emptily hurting stomach.

Knuckles guessed that almost three days had passed when Eggman turned up the first time again. Unlike the echidna had assumed, he didn't leave when Knuckles once again made clear he refused to help with anything Eggman did. Basking in the safety of a couple robot guard with guns pointing at the guardian's chest, Dr. Eggman stayed for a long time, speaking of nothing but the marvellous dinner he planned on having later in morbid detail. When he finally left, Knuckles was sick.

The hunger got worse over the next, otherwise eventless days, to the point when Knuckles couldn't master the concentration to sense out for the anyway weak field of the Master's energy anymore. It unsettled him mildly that he couldn't check up on it, not that he was in a position to do anything about possible dangers that might occur to the gemstone and the floating island, but it had been to distant to be of use for him here anyway. He stopped his sports as well, beginning to feel too weakened to bother. Instead he just sat leaning against the walls of his prison, wondering if Eggman was intending to kill him simply by letting him starve.

More days passed with sporadic visits by Eggman and his robots. They never touched Knuckles. The human just asked questions, Knuckles refused to as much as answer; or Eggman told him he would eventually help him anyway what the echidna stubbornly denied; or the scientist gloatingly told him about the wonderful pleasures he enjoyed while Knuckles was stuck here. After a few repetitions of this Eggman seemed to begin to get annoyed, but if Knuckles hoped that would induce a change of tactics, he was disappointed. And he was still stuck here.

Stuck, yes. It occurred to the echidna more and more how very stuck he was. Another few days and he wasn't sure anymore how or if he could handle a greater number of robots. Strangely, he stopped being hungry at some point. As if his body had forgotten it needed food. He felt less weak since the pain was gone, but probably that was but an illusion. He was past caring, really.

Maybe he should just give in and tell Eggman whatever he wanted to know of him… But if he translated that stupid text, he would not only give his enemy access to some sort of treasure, although Knuckles still doubted it was a weapon from the little he knew about it, but he just didn't want to give Eggman _anything_ valuable. All apathy aside, a portion of pride was left and its sting was fiery as ever. It'd need more than a small, empty room with a terrible cuisine to break him. Yes.

Additionally, there was some calculating behind his decisions. After all, he had more than enough time to think through what he did. If Eggman didn't need him anymore, his life lost the little value it had in this place. Eggman needed him, because he could make sense of something even his computers apparently couldn't. And that was why Knuckles still was kind of sure Eggman wouldn't let him starve here in the end. He was pressuring him with it, but as a dead echidna he was useless. It was always about usefulness with Eggman. That was something Knuckles had learned.

The echidna slouched against the wall. He wasn't exactly tired. From what should he be tired, anyway? He was bored, and annoyed, and he wanted out of here. Where were the chaos-forsaken people that called themselves his friends now? Eggman kept insisting nobody would ever search for him. Knuckles didn't believe that. Sonic or Tails would search for him. The hedgehog would probably rant on and on about 'Knucklehead being an idiot', not that he didn't have all rights to say that, but he would search.

Still, the security his enemy seemed to feel about the matter was concerning Knuckles more and more. Just what had Eggman _done_ to be so sure they wouldn't come for him?


	16. For The Sake Of Revenge

_Two weeks later…_

He felt lost. Sonic pulled his legs up onto the couch, hugging his knees and resting his chin on them. The half of the chili dog remained untouched on the table. It wouldn't taste. Somehow, nothing had really tasted ever since…

Sonic gulped, trying to swallow the lump that formed in his throat. He'd never thought it'd be so bad. He'd lost people before. Chip for example. He knew he would never see the little fellow again. But Chip was only asleep, peacefully dreaming within the core of the planet until he would awaken again. He'd also thought he'd lost Shadow, at least for a while. But he had barely even known Shadow. Sure, the bond between two beings drawing on the same Emeralds at the same time was rather strong, but it was nothing… personal, nothing filled with actual feeling. He had never been friends with Shadow. But… he'd been friends with Knuckles.

You couldn't exactly say their friendship had always been harmonic, quite the opposite even on occasions. They used to fight, over every goddamn idiotic thing sometimes; but no matter their disagreements, Sonic had always known he had a friend in the stubborn, bland echidna. He'd always known that if push really came to shove Knuckles would be with him and not against him. In the end it had been more like they would fight for fun or thrill or habit, not for disliking each other. Sometimes each other's opinion, but still…

They wouldn't bicker and tease and fight again. Ever again. He'd never even told Knuckles how much their little fights and banter meant to him. Never thought he had to. And now... he couldn't shake off the thought that the last things he'd said to him had been heated insults. Usually, they always made up after arguing, one or the other way. They wouldn't make up now. They wouldn't do anything... _together_ again, and Sonic had never thought he'd find the idea so painful.

Suddenly the question what would become of Knuckles' Master Emerald now that he was gone appeared to the hedgehog. Maybe they should hide it somewhere, Knuckles wouldn't want it lying around in the open for long without a guardian, but Sonic didn't want to go to the floating island. He couldn't even really imagine it without its stubborn, short-tempered guardian, and yet he had to. The hedgehog shook his head to himself. Knuckles was gone for only two weeks, and he was already pondering his legacy. Was that right? He didn't know, but it didn't feel okay to him.

Sonic sighed. He'd tried taking a run in the morning, but as the past two weeks had proven, running wasn't a fix for everything. You couldn't run from your thoughts, although Sonic very much wished he could at the moment. If at all, running was a little soothing right now.

Tails had locked himself in his workshop, almost obsessively intent on building a new plane. Maybe this was how things like that worked. Sonic would run and Tails would tinker.

The blue hedgehog abruptly stood up, deciding he should look after his little bro. Something told him sitting around by themselves wasn't a good idea.

He left his room and walked down the stairway to Tails' hangar/workshop combination. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, his not very fast steps slowed down even more. "Wow, Tails, I wouldn't have thought you'd get it ready so quickly…"

Tails looked up from where he sat in the cockpit. A tiny smile managed to creep on his face as he saw the hedgehog, but it only partly covered the look of his drooping ears and the shadows underneath his eyes. Sonic assumed both of them were lacking sleep.

The two-tailed fox jumped out of his plane. "It's not quite ready yet. It still needs a paint job. And I haven't any weapons installed yet. I lost the blue prints and so I'll need to make completely new designs and –" Suddenly he stopped dead in his blubbering speech, closing the small distance between them and hugging Sonic. "I miss him."

Sonic nodded, resting his chin by Tails' ears. "Me too," he mumbled quietly. "Me too."

A few minutes passed in utter silence. There wasn't anything to be said anymore. Then Tails slowly loosened the embrace. "I think I found Eggman's underground base."

Sonic blinked, the anew change of topic a little too drastic for him to follow. "You know where he is?"

"I think so. You said you'd need to find him." The young fox tilted his head as he regarded the hedgehog. "What are you gonna do now, Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog didn't reply immediately. He didn't really know what he was gonna do. It wasn't his style planning ahead much, he used to let things happen and see what he made of them. Thinking too much wasn't his style either, and at the moment he was already thinking way too much.

Maybe it was that he felt like he needed to do something. Anything… just to change… this whole goddamn situation. He felt like a puppet thrown into the wrong play. Things happened that weren't supposed to happen; and all of this had to be someone's fault. Eggman's fault. It had been his crazy plan they had once more somewhat collided with, it had been his sick excavations, his explosives. And Eggman would have to pay. The feeling had confused him at first, for he had never really felt anything like it before, but suddenly, now that Eggman seemed in reach he was rather sure about it. He wanted _revenge_.

Sonic didn't know if that would make him feel any better. Perhaps not, perhaps he'd feel worse then… if that was possible. After all, it was worth a try, and there still was the matter of Eggman's not really known plan he needed to cross anyway.

"I'm not really sure yet, Tails," the hedgehog said finally. "But Eggman won't get away." Thoughtfully he looked at the little fox. Somehow he wasn't sure if he wanted Tails to witness whatever he was going to do. "Maybe I should go alone…", he started, but Tails quickly cut him off.

"Don't you think you can leave me here!" The blue eyes twinkled reproachfully. "We're a team, we've always been a team and we'll stay it. If you're going, I'm with you."

"No matter what I might do?", Sonic asked carefully.

Tails nodded decidedly, without the briefest moment of doubt. "No matter what you do."

The blue hedgehog nodded, feeling a small smile appear on his face. He ruffled Tails' head fur. "I'm glad to have you, little bro," he said, then looked at the plane. "Does that baby fly?"

Tails looked almost disappointed now. "What do you think? That it swims? Of course it flies!"

Sonic nodded. "Good. Then you better get ready, Tails. We got a date with Eggman."

* * *

The entrance to the base was almost well obscured between rocks and trees. Sonic gave Tails a nod, gesturing back to where they'd left the new Tornado hidden under a set of bushes after landing. So far nothing announced Eggman or any of his surveillance systems had noticed their arrival.

"You ready, Tails?", the hedgehog asked.

The twin tailed fox nodded. "Yep. How's the plan?"

Sonic tipped his head aside in brief thought. "I think we split. If the place is anything as big and messy as Eggman's other bases, it'll take forever finding anything in there."

Tails cupped his chin in one hand. "So, what are we looking for anyway?"

"You, anything that looks like the stuff Eggman took from Angel Island. Some kind of mysterious looking echidna stony stuff." Sonic's face turned grim. "And I… I'll try to get at Eggbreath."

Tails nodded again, his ears unconsciously flicking backwards a little at the tone in his elder brother's voice and the fox decided not to ask any further. "Okay. How do I know you're done? Or the other way around?"

Sonic turned thoughtful again, regretting a little now neither of them had thought of bringing radios. "I'd say when we think we're done we'll come back here and meet at the plane."

With a shrug Tails agreed. "Sounds like the only possible thing. Unless we run into each other again in there."

"Whatever." The blue hedgehog pointed at the door. "Let's get going."

The two friends closed in on the large door completely. Sonic eyed the enforced metal in search of a weakness. He was getting ready to try and bash it right in with a spin dash when Tails lifted his hand.

"Wait, I think there's a better way…"

Sonic cocked a brow, watching his younger friend feel along the side of the door frame. A small clicking sound revealed a little casing in it hosting a panel of buttons. Tails hesitated just a second, then his fingers quickly danced over the keys. A few seconds later a small buzzing sound caused the door to slide open, and Sonic's jaw to drop down to the floor.

Tails grinned as he turned to his brother. "All you need is a password…"

Sonic blinked in bewilderment. "How comes you know Eggy's passwords?"

The fox shrugged. "Well, I guess it was luck involved, too… It asked for a rather long thing. I tried 'All hail the Eggman Empire'."

Shaking his head, Sonic was almost tempted to laugh. "Good job, little bro. I think you're cool for this." He pointed inside the corridor that opened behind the now open door. "See ya later then?"

"Yup. Good luck."

"You too." Sonic briefly inclined his head at the fox before turning around and breaking into a sprint.

* * *

Eggman's taste of architecture had always been questionable. Sonic's emerald eyes traced along the various cables, metallic tubes and tall pistons that filled the hall he'd just entered. Each rhythmic stoke of the latter caused a strange sound to echo through the big room, but the spinning of the shaft they drove remained almost soundless.

In between the numerous pieces of machinery for obscure purposes several small passageways crossed in patterns resembling a labyrinth. Mixing the impression of industrial complex with the strange notion of amusement park, seemingly random rails carrying small trolleys were winding through the hall, forming loops and twists.

Sonic had always wondered what drove Eggman to build these things. That he built spiky traps, preferably directly positioned behind 90-degree turns, pits in the way or the end of grind rails was reasonable considering the ways were designed to make Sonic's progress through his bases harder if he happened to come there. Being honest Sonic had to admit they made his visits more interesting. Rounding a corner always wondering what kind of diabolical death trap would await you there added well to the thrill of it all; a thrill Sonic, and if even just unconsciously, always strived for.

But rollercoaster-like little trains? Were they of any use for transportation of stuff through the base? Something told Sonic whatever stuff you'd try transporting by means like that wouldn't reach its destination in one piece… especially considering most rails suddenly ended above a set of spikes or a groundless gulf. Perhaps a test side for new robots? What survived this was ready for real life?

Once the idea that Eggman maybe secretly had fun riding them himself had occurred to Sonic, but he'd quickly crossed it out. Not that it wouldn't fit Eggman's style. It wasn't quite possible to fully discern that madman, maybe he did have something for rollercoaster rides spiced with a set of death traps. But alone the design of the karts made the idea impossible to be true. Sonic fit in them nearly perfectly… how could Eggman, being almost twice as tall as the blue hedgehog, fit in? No way in hell.

Probably this all was part of what Eggman considered a clever plan. Possible that the crazed scientist wanted his nemesis to enjoy himself before ending his life impaled by a spike trap or fried in a pool of molten material.

Sonic shook his head. Overall things like that made a trip to Eggman's bases an adventure of a special kind. Starting to run again, the hedgehog followed one of the paved paths, raising a brow just briefly as it – after rounding a big machine block – curved upwards into a twist. Speeding up his run a little further to withstand gravity Sonic couldn't help but whoop in excitement as he was turned upside down, the tad more blood than usually rushing into his head carrying a good amount of adrenaline.

Following two loops and just narrowly missed by a large platform that suddenly slammed down onto the once again 'normally positioned' path, Sonic found he was grinning in spite of the whole situation. No matter how his confrontation with Eggman would play out, no matter the sick surroundings, there was one advantage he had this time compared to the last time he'd been in a place like this. During his last trip to Eggmanland, a complete island under Eggman's reign, he'd still been cursed with this werehog problem, tired out by a long trip around the world, lacking sleep and especially at night times secretly terrified this horrible transformation would stay. It had not, causing the blue hedgehog to savor every night time run he got now especially… He wasn't one to spend too much thought on the past, but the looks of Eggman's base brought back the memory.

He'd beaten Eggman back then, he's beaten Dark Gaia, he'd beaten Perfect Chaos, he'd beaten other odds before. He would surely also beat whatever Eggman was digging out at the moment.

Decidedly the hedgehog accelerated his steps again, the shockwave of his own sonic boom ripping at his quills. Just a heartbeat later he'd left the noise of Eggman's machines behind at the sound barrier and all that was left was the screaming rush of wind about his ears.

* * *

Amy Rose turned away from the window. "Are we really going to sit around like that forever?"

Espio on the worn-out couch exchanged a glance with Vector behind the desk. "If you have anything to suggest that will help us, feel free to say it…"

"We still haven't gotten Vanilla's vase and plate back," the pink hedgehog noticed. "Wasn't that what our case was? We have to investigate!"

"Amy, the case it cold. I hate to say it." Espio sighed. "An investigation is based on clues. The clues we found all lead to Eggman. But we don't know where Eggman is."

"Eggman told me he needed Misses Vanilla's belongings to help him find some kind of treasure," Vector said. "It is likely he was having the objects with him at the ruins in the jungle. You know what happened in the jungle. We all know. It's possible the objects got destroyed."

"But we don't know that! Maybe Eggman took them with him." Amy wasn't going to give up that easily. She'd promised Cream she would get her favorite vase back. Eggman couldn't just be allowed to get away with everything, could he?

"We don't even know if Eggman survived the explosion." Espio leaned forwards a little. "From all we know, he might as well have been killed in it."

"Maybe he blew up the ruins on purpose, to destroy any clues on where he's going now." Amy folded her arms, pacing in front of the window.

"Eggman blows up a lot of stuff. Maybe he thinks it's fun!", Charmy piped up.

The pink hedgehog shot the little bee a thankful glance. "See? Just that is my point. Eggman always blows up stuff. And he always survived it. He's still out there, somewhere."

"Even if he is, we don't know where. Out there isn't enough, Amy. I'm sorry." Vector shook his head. "We can only wait to see if he turns up again."

"But if he does, we're going to do something about it, right?", the girl asked just to be sure.

It was Espio who nodded. "It's still our case, no matter that we can't do anything about it right now. And even if it weren't, there is something I'd need to talk to Eggman about." The chameleon's eyes turned fierce, with a cold and hard steel in them Amy had never seen before. Whatever Espio was thinking, she wouldn't want to be his enemy.

"Leave a piece of him for me. I got a hammer to flatten him with, too." Knuckles had not really been a friend to her… what didn't mean she didn't want to get back at Eggman for what he'd done. Amy had, after the dramatic events in the jungle, accustomed herself to something she was kind of good it. She wasn't that sad for Knuckles, 'cause she'd pushed most of her energy and feelings into being angry at Eggman. Mad at him. The anger always made her strong. Amy Rose was very, very dangerous when mad.

She nodded at Espio and sighed. "Let me know when you hear something about that Eggman, okay?"

The chameleon inclined his head. "We will."

Amy smiled a little. So now all she, they, could do was wait and watch the news. _Where are you, Eggman_ … _?_

* * *

Silently edging closer to the corner of the platform he stood on, Tails leaned over it and looked down. About three meters below, a group of three robots was walking back and forth; one of them equipped with a rocket launcher, the others a standard model holding a yellow shield. Behind them was the door… the only way for him to go on was past them.

Tails chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully. The rocket holding one surely was the most dangerous one of the machines… but maybe he could use it to his advantage. Narrowing his blue eyes in decision, the young fox stood up and stretched his tails. Sonic was counting on him, and he wanted to prove he was worth the hedgehog's trust.

Spinning his namesakes, Tails gently descended from the platform to land behind the two shield bots. "Hey there! Look here!", he called out, probably not the most intelligent thing to say, but the excitement of the moment seemed to incapacitate his brain cells, Tails found.

Disregarding the fox' doubts, the robots finally noticed the intruder. With a small sirring their heads span around almost 180 degree, a second later they were marching towards the little orange fox before them.

Tails reacted immediately. Though no match for Sonic's speed, he wasn't slow either. Quickly jumping aside and starting to run, the fox managed to get around the two pursuing bots, an action that brought him in between them and their third companion.

Seeming finally to get into reach of its sensory as he hurried towards it, Tails' movements made the rocket robot enter an alerted mode as well. It raised the rocket launcher and the first missile shot out of it with a loud whoosh.

Having expected the attack, Tails dived forwards just in time for the rocket to miss him. Rolling over his shoulder and more or less gracely ending up on his hands and knees the fox watched over his shoulders how the missile smashed into the first shield bot, breaking the yellow thin plate without any visible problems.

Either noticing that Tails was gone too late or not at all, the rocket robot fired the second of his missiles. Quickly getting fully to his feet, Tails ran right for the now unarmed machine, in the back of his mind noticing the bang as the second shield guy bit the dust.

Decreasing the length of his steps as he approached the robots and starting to spin around on his feet as though he were dancing, Tails leaned forwards while stiffening his tails, a move he'd learned already a year or so ago, but didn't use very often. Spinning faster he closed the distance to the robot entirely, his namesakes making hard contact with the metal torso knocking the machine over.

The angle of falling onto the concrete floor seemed unlucky for the bot; its neck ended up inclined in a very unhealthy position and the machine stopped moving.

Briefly rubbing his tails, the young fox stood upright and looked upon the beaten machines. A small smile tugged on his lips as he turned around to leave. _Someone should tell Eggman his robots are still killing each other. Ever heard of friendly fire?_

* * *

Sonic yelped when he nearly ended up falling to certain death. It was reflex that brought him to stretch out his right arm and his legs towards the wall leading down into a deep darkness. Pushing off with all his might, the hedgehog managed to jump just high enough his fingertips could close around the edge of the solid ground he'd just tripped off. He hung there for just a second, enough time to take one deep breath, then pulled himself up.

Dusting off his gloves, almost calm again already, the hedgehog walked back the few meters of path to the last interception. If this way was a dead end, he'd have to take another one.

'Another one' turned out to be blocked by a door. Too impatient to try and find out how to open it, Sonic charged up a spindash; his momentum easily enough to at least knock this particular door right out of its hinges.

Sonic found himself tumbling into a much brighter lit and much less messy corridor, going farther than he could see, the walls left and right lining up door after door in a regular pattern. Wherever this here was, it wasn't the factory part any more. Probably he'd find Eggman here… At least the big amount of guard robots that now all readily span into Sonic's direction proved this area was of an important kind.

The blue hedgehog shrugged, dashing out of the way of starting laser fire. He'd take out the bots first. And then he'd look behind every chaos-forsaken door there was.

He'd find Eggman. And it wasn't going to be pretty.


	17. The Living Dead

Resistance had died out after a couple of minutes and Sonic was left almost disappointed. The raw action, the simple fight had felt good, much better than the sitting around he'd been doing the past weeks and also much better, much more relieving than the runs he'd taken to try and escape his troubles. The running had not really served him well in that regard. Running made you think, at least initially. Sonic didn't want to think, didn't want to face what he knew anyway. The most rewarding thing about a long run had been the numbing tiredness afterwards.

This was better. Much better. Finally something to smash, to blow up, to spin-dash into tiny pieces of crap flying in all directions. It felt real and alive and factual. Something to grip, something to fuel his anger and frustration and pain into. An outlet? Perhaps. He didn't directly think of it that way.

Whatever this corridor he'd broken into was, it had been heavily guarded. Dozens of robots had immediately charged at Sonic when he had arrived suddenly before them. Any normal day, Sonic would have probably thought outnumbered like that he'd get into trouble. Today was different. He wasn't here to play tag with Eggman's machines. He was here to destroy what stood in his way and doing so felt incredibly satisfying.

In a way, he was almost scared of himself now that he looked at what remained of the robots. Within mere minutes all that was left of a large number of killing machines was smoking piles of charred plastic and brownish oil leaking from broken lines over deformed metal remains. He'd never before really realized how much power, power to destroy, he had in him if something got him to use it. The idea was somewhat disturbing, and yet, in a strange way, it felt good.

Sonic turned his attention away from the broken robots and his gaze trailed over the many doors. They had switches at the wall next to them to open. The blue hedgehog tipped his head aside. Whatever was behind those doors, Eggman had deemed it important enough to have it guarded like that. Maybe his weird plan was behind one of those doors? Sonic grinned. In that case, he'd make sure it went the way the robots had gone.

And if Eggman himself would be in one of the rooms... Well, he'd see when he found him. Sonic hadn't really made a plan on what he'd do to Eggman. He'd think of something, he was sure about that. Decided, the hedgehog reached out and pressed the switch to open the first one of the mysterious rooms. It slid open with a soft buzzing sound, and plan or not, Sonic found himself entirely unprepared what he saw next.

* * *

Kipped into the corner of his prison Knuckles didn't even open his eyes as the sound of the door opening reached his ears. He wasn't interested in negotiating with Eggman; he didn't care at all what the human wanted _this_ time.

The first thing that stuck out to him was the total lack of robots that made this visit so different from the others. Whatever had brought Eggman here, he had come alone. Warrior's pride and the natural desire for freedom sparked inside of Knuckles at the idea. A small army of robots might be too much for him – at least at the moment. But a sole, fat guy?

Violet eyes flew open and the echidna's muscles braced, sore from under-use, but it would do. He hadn't planned his attack yet, but as soon as he caught sight of his visitor, all planning was aborted, his body slackened again and Knuckles felt his jaw drop.

Directly in the door frame stood Sonic, staring openly at Knuckles, and somehow the echidna found it almost amusing seeing the hedgehog speechless for once. He'd hoped Sonic and Tails would come to help him, but he'd almost given up over the past days. He'd been angry that Sonic hadn't come to help him and he'd planned exactly how he wanted to give it back to the hedgehog that he'd left him hanging like that. It didn't make sense to him, but now that he suddenly stood before him, Knuckles didn't feel angry anymore. He felt only relieved to see a friendly face and he could have kicked himself for that moment of weakness, but couldn't bring himself to it. It was too... nice to see Sonic.

Swallowing his surprise, Knuckles allowed a smile to slip onto his face. "Took you long enough," he said.

Sonic didn't reply, he just blinked, shook his head, blinked again, then opened and closed his mouth a couple times before words made it out. "You… you…. You are…?" His face had lost all of its color in a matter of seconds and he swayed a little.

Concern coming up at this, Knuckles quickly rose to his feet, eyes scanning the hedgehog for signs of injury that would justify him looking as if he was about to faint. There were multiple ways to get hurt infiltrating one of Eggman's strongholds, Knuckles knew well. "Hey, you okay? Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog still merely blinked, ears twitching, and he looked actually shocked. By _what_ still remained a mystery to the echidna, but he was almost tempted to look over his shoulder to check if some spooky monster stood behind him.

"… Kn…Knuckles?"

"Uh… yes?"

Distantly Knuckles noticed Sonic's quills had gone ridged, usually either a sign of utter fear or anger. "You… you are… you… you dumb idiot!"

Now it was Knuckles' turn to stupidly blink for a few seconds. Whatever he had expected Sonic to say, it wasn't that. "Thanks a lot. Would you care get me outta here anyway?"

A strong, short wind played with his spines as Sonic covered the distance across the room with lightning fast steps until he stood right before him. "You're such a Knucklehead! We were right ready to get your funeral up!" For a moment Sonic outright glared at him and Knuckles braced himself for a punch or at least a slap across the face, but a squeezing hug was the last thing he would have ever expected, especially of Sonic.

"Umm… Sonic?", he gasped out, deeply intimidated. "Let me go, okay?"

Upon being, though gently, shoved away, Sonic scrambled backwards, still pale as the sky and still not seeming quite standing safely, reaching out with one hand to seek the support of the nearest wall, but the distance was too big and his fingers just met air, upsetting his balance even more. "You…are…"

Catching a hold of his shoulders to keep him from falling over all the way, Knuckles looked him up and down, trying to access what was wrong with him. And finally, suddenly Sonic's mentioning of funerals, Eggman's statement no-one would search for him, Sonic's behavior and the events of back when he'd gotten caught two weeks ago clicked.

They'd thought he was dead.

"I – I'm sorry, Sonic. I didn't know that… and I should have…"

Even right when he started speaking, Knuckles realized nothing of it really got through to his friend. Sonic still stared at him, still struggled to keep upright, still struggled to process the fact there was a _living_ scarlet echidna standing in front of him. "You're _dead_!" There was an almost hysteric pitch in his voice.

"Sonic, listen."

Useless. No reaction. Totally braindead. Overload. Didn't seem that much of a strange reaction given the circumstances, Knuckles supposed. As far as he could discern what a 'normal' reaction in such a case would even be...

Later the echidna wouldn't really be able to tell if it was some gut instinct every creature possessed or some more or less rational thinking based on observations he'd made with other people, but he found himself doing something he'd never done before in his life. Well, not out of himself. Just as an awkward receiver before.

For a second or two Sonic's body went stiff when Knuckles pulled him close, just to go limp in the next, dropping heavily into the unusual hug, and just that was enough to tell the echidna it had been not a bad decision. Feeling not near as weird as he'd always thought he would, he noticed absentmindedly that instinctively _Sonic_ had seemed to know he needed that anyway, but Knuckles had understood too slowly then. Now, mentally scolding himself a little, Knuckles patted Sonic's spiked back, holding one arm firmly around him, not really sure how much he needed to _physically_ steady the hedgehog.

And just waited. Waited for Sonic's gasped breathing to slow down again, waited for the tense quills to relax, waited for Sonic's mind to be able to catch up, and watched over his friend's shoulder through the open door to be ready if a threat would arise the blue hedgehog was clearly incapacitated to handle at the moment.

No robot turned up anyhow and Sonic slowly started to regain composure at realizing Knuckles was just as warm, breathing and alive as he was.

"You're dead." A mere whisper broke the silence between them, not really question but not quite statement either.

"No." Knuckles' reply managed to come soft and with a patience he'd rarely had, especially around a certain blue hedgehog. "If I am, I failed to notice. And even you should know I'm not _that_ dumb."

Something about the last comment seemed to get Sonic a step closer to win the battle between doubt and belief. "Knux?" His voice was small, hesitant, floating in the void between hope and something else and not yet fully able to decide which of them to choose for.

A small smile tugged on Knuckles' lips at the sound of the nickname. "Yes. I'm me."

Sonic gulped audibly, took a deep breath and seemed finally able to stand by himself.

"See? Everything's fine, okay?" Pulling away carefully and not meeting much resistance, the echidna tried a real smile, wondering if it really was his first in almost two weeks, and when he realized it actually was he wondered some more... about the strange circumstances that had caused this smile. "Better now?"

"Uh-hu. I… I'm good." Sonic nodded, moving a little further away on his own. "And you're too."

Smiling broader and fully, consciously enjoying it, Knuckles looked up at his face. It was funny how expressive the blue hedgehog was to someone who at least remotely knew him, and Knuckles did more than that. Right now the tan skin of Sonic's muzzle was stained with a blush, his slightly down-tipped ears adding to the expression of embarrassment, but he was grinning broadly like a child on his birthday and the green eyes were glazed over with – what? _Tears_?!

"I'm sorry, Sonic. I should have listened and–", he started, but the hedgehog cut in.

"Scratch it, will ya? This whole situation seems enough like a crappy, corny movie without you starting a guilty speech, don't ya think?" Sonic still grinned, finally. _Normality, please?_

Knuckles smiled again in spite of himself. "I guess so, yeah." Feeling in desperate need for something sensible to do, he brushed himself off after having sat on the floor so long, although there was no need to do so in this close to sterile environment.

"You know what? You look like crap, Knux."

The echidna looked back at Sonic irritatedly. "So?"

"I mean it." Sonic frowned in slight concern that added another weird notion to the mixture of emotions on his face as he pulled his eyes upwards to look at his friend's face and not the shapes of ribs under his red fur. "Didn't he feed you?"

Knuckles shook his head. "No. He wanted me to help him translate some stuff; I guess he was trying to get me to do it. He didn't do much else to me. I think he thought he needed me alive and more or less healthy."

Sonic's face hardened a little. "Well, that's not nice. Eggman was meant to pay anyway, it doesn't matter much what I make him pay for, does it?"

"Not really," Knuckles agreed, not bothering to ask for any details. "Count me in, too."

Sonic grinned. "Alright, buddy!"

Knuckles grumbled at this way of addressing him, but thought he could skip on it just this once.

Pointing at the door, Sonic gestured at the echidna. "I'm outta here. How about you?"

Maybe for the first and only time in their both lives, Knuckles was faster than Sonic and the hedgehog didn't mind at all.

* * *

Eyebrows raised, Knuckles regarded the long corridor. The floor was covered in what was left of a small army of robots, the air smelled of smoke and charred cables, and most of the dented metal remains showed definite traces of hedgehog quills. "I assume you were about to tidy up?"

Sonic chuckled, arms casually folded on his chest, in spite of the surroundings seeming more at ease than Knuckles had seen in a while, and after the little episode of just a couple minutes ago Knuckles was overly glad about that. "No. I'll leave that to Eggman. I was just getting things outta my way."

"I see. What brings you here, anyway? Eggman told me no-one would search for me, and given your reaction I don't think you expected to see me." Knuckles frowned a little.

"We thought we saw you being blown to bits, Knuckles," Sonic said, suddenly serious again. "Y'know, like in 'killed'. Dead. Finito. No more Knuckles. You understand?!" Sonic's green eyes narrowed and he turned away, continuing his speech much quieter than just a second ago. "I came for revenge."

The red echidna blinked. The idea, no, the hedgehog's entire behavior seemed so unlike _him_ that it was enough to mildly scare him. Maybe he was more important to Sonic than he'd considered, even now that they were much more on friendly terms than they used for a while. The sheer idea of Sonic, who always destroyed his enemies' plans, but never _them_ , considering something like revenge seemed… wrong. It didn't fit into Knuckles' picture of the blue hedgehog. "Sonic, I don't –"

"Forget it." Sonic turned back to him, still more glaring at him than anything else, and pointed at the door. "Let's get going. We gotta get you some food. I don't want to hurt myself on some hard bone when I kick your butt for being a brainless idiot and running right into Eggman's arms."

For another moment Knuckles just blinked dumbly again, standing and staring after Sonic as the hedgehog walked away, his path swerving to get around the broken robots, but given the energetic springiness that was back in his steps the echidna wasn't too sure how very angry Sonic _really_ was with him.

"We could try finding Tails," Sonic said, still not turning around to see if Knuckles followed.

"Tails? Where'd you leave him?" Not wanting to be left behind for good, Knuckles started to jog after Sonic. His muscles ached in protest, but in spite of the discomfort the movement itself felt great after being locked up.

"We separated at the entrance to this wonderful place." The blue hedgehog waved a hand around to gesture at their surroundings. "He's searching your stuff. I think I have an idea which way he could have taken…"

Once more Knuckles found himself staring after Sonic as the hedgehog fell into a jog. "What stuff? Hey, wait up!"

* * *

Reducing his speed to match Knuckles, Sonic kept catching himself throwing glances over his shoulder, an action driven by the simple need of reassurance the Emerald guardian had not vanished in thin air, turned into a ghost or something else.

Everytime he stared, he found himself looking at just the same red echidna he'd grown so used to having around over the years, though a little too skinny. But he was a _living_ echidna.

If Knuckles didn't notice Sonic's recurring glances at him or just ignored them, the hedgehog wasn't sure. He seemed rather concentrated on running and appeared a little stiff, but as the minutes passed his movements got smoother again.

Oh, and he was not dead.

Sonic grinned, shaking his head to himself for still taking notice of that particular fact. Again. He'd stopped counting. No, if he was honest, he didn't start counting in the first place. But he'd taken almost two weeks to make himself believe and deal with the idea that Knuckles was dead that it was hard to believe now he wasn't.

Once more shooting a short side-glance at his companion, Sonic wasn't even sure how he felt about everything that had happened now. Probably it happened all too fast, and all at once.

A part of him wanted to be angry with Knuckles. Angry he hadn't listened to him, angry he'd run off on his own, angry he was always so stubborn, angry he'd just presumably died and left Sonic and Tails and everybody else alone with it.

He was angry with himself, too. Because he didn't seem able to talk reasonably with Knuckles, because he always got into arguments with one of his best friends, because one of those arguments had driven the echidna to leave on his own, because he, Sonic, had not been able to stop him. Because he'd so easily jumped to the conclusion everybody made that Knuckles had to be dead, too. If he'd doubted it, he could have gotten him out earlier. But all he did was hide and grief. It wasn't what he should do, being him. He should have gone out right away…

The hedgehog shook his head. This was leading him nowhere. And it wasn't that anger was everything he felt.

There was this little part of him that kept looking over to Knuckles to prove and re-prove his mere existence. A little part that was afraid, afraid this would turn out to be just a strange dream or something. A little part that in so much detail remembered the pain, sadness, despair… and was cowering inside it would be back.

But the largest part of him didn't allow these others to truly voice their opinion. If he'd carried out what he felt _there_ , he'd have to take both Knuckles' hands and start dancing around Eggman's lair, death traps around or not. The mental image though was more than awkward, and most likely the red echidna wouldn't be so pleased. Another possible way expressing his feelings would be bouncing around the place screaming in happiness… Maybe he'd do that a little later.

For now, he accustomed himself to jogging alongside Knuckles, blissfully aware of the relief and joy overpowering what other emotions span around in his mind, still dizzying, confusing, but he was almost growing used to it. He still would kick Eggman where it hurt… but probably he wouldn't have to kill him today.

"Sonic?", Knuckles' voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Yeah?" He turned to him, grinning.

"If your smile should get any wider it's gonna burst your skull, I'm afraid," the echidna noticed dryly.

"Heh." Sonic however was strangely pleased at the way the corners of his mouth protested against being pulled that far. He pointed at Knuckles, suddenly chuckling idiotically for reasons he didn't understand. "Hey, you're alive!"

Knuckles shook his head, a sigh escaping his lips. "Thanks for the newsflash, hedgehog. What would I do without you around to tell me things like that?"

Sonic still chuckled. He just couldn't help it. "My saying!" He spun 180 degree, running backwards, hands crossed behind his head.

"You'll run into stuff," Knuckles said, frowning at him.

"Doesn't matter," Sonic gave back, enjoying the wind playing strongly with his spikes and the thuds their both feet made on the floor. It _really_ didn't matter. Nothing did.

Whatever this was he was feeling, it was stronger than a common runner's high he'd sometimes encountered. And much different anyway. It was more like a mighty sugar flash.

_Drunk._

The word flashed in his mind suddenly, and right when it did he knew it fit. He'd never been drunk on anything before, truth be told. But he was drunk now. Drunk on happiness or relief or just a general overdose of emotions, and he was enjoying every bit of it. He didn't care if it would last for long... that was also something that didn't matter at all.

* * *

For Eggman's headquarters, the place didn't seem too crowded by robots. Tails looked around, not really trusting the peace. He had just reached an intersection of three corridors that entered a smaller hall, when a loud crashing sound seemed to prove him right.

Cautiously, the little fox followed the direction it had come from, slowing down completely startled when he heard someone speaking.

Or rather, moaning. "Owww…"

"I told you this was going to happen, hedgehog."

"Ow. Shut up…"

A chuckle followed.

Tails gasped, quickly drawing the breath he'd unconsciously held. "This… can't be…"

Hurrying around the next corner so fast his twin tails started spinning, the fox found himself looking at a very familiar blue hedgehog, seated on the floor against a wall, a pained expression on his face and rubbing the back of his head. In front of him stood, arms folded and looking down on him, another person Tails was accustomed seeing.

Or rather, had been accustomed seeing. They'd all been sure they'd never see him again…

Tails blinked, turned away, looked again only to find both of them still there, pinched himself, winced at the pain, stared at the echidna, tears rapidly clouding the picture. "Knuckles!"

"Tails?", the two others chorused in surprise, both turning to look at him. At that time, the two-tailed fox had already thrown himself at the red echidna he couldn't see too well anymore through a curtain of hot tears.

"Knuckles!", he sobbed, vaguely aware of the guardian dropping to his knees and catching him as he wrapped his arms around Knuckles' body with a strength he didn't know he had.

"Shhhh, it's okay, kid…" A large hand patted his back, its owner not seeming to mind the little fox attempting to squeeze the wind out of him.

Tails only cried harder. He didn't want to, it always made him feel small and helpless and stupid when that happened, but he couldn't help himself. He didn't know if it was because he was just eight, but he didn't like it at all.

But Knuckles really didn't seem to mind and Tails perked his ears at the sound of his breathing and heartbeat. "I missed you," he muttered between sobs into the red fur he'd buried his face into.

"I know, Tails. It's alright."

It took Tails minutes to make himself stop crying. Sniffling and wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his glove, he pulled away from Knuckles and found the echidna's violet eyes softly smiling at him in a rarely seen patience. "I'm so glad you're okay," he repeated.

Knuckles' smile grew. "I know." Friendly patting Tails' shoulder, he stood to his full height again.

"You know, you were a lot faster getting straight he's not a hallucination than I was," Sonic noticed, ruffling Tails' headfur.

"He doesn't look dead enough," the fox noticed, smiling at his two older friends.

"Well, I wasn't trying hard enough, then," Knuckles joked, causing all three of them to laugh.

Serene and relaxed, Tails looked up at the echidna. "Don't you ever scare us like that again."

"Good idea, big guy," Sonic grinned, giving his little brother a thumbs-up.

"Alright." Knuckles nodded, suddenly looking like the serious, formal Emerald guardian from the mystical Floating Island again they'd met so long ago.

Tails was about to make a comment on that one, when an unexpected voice from behind cut in.

"I'm really sorry to interrupt your happy reunions, but I have a few plans for you…" Looking down on the trio from out of his floating mobile and holding a glowing laser gun, Robotnik grinned. "You should have knocked, Sonic."


	18. Ancient Puzzles

Sonic's eyes narrowed in anger. "Eggman!" The word came out as more of a growl than a shout. The second it left his mouth, the hedgehog had already launched himself at the first of the robots accompanying the scientist. A laser beam missed his ear by just an inch, but the robot firing it wasn't missed by the spin attack. Uncurling and smashing a flying kick at the already toppling machine, Sonic sent it flying against the nearest wall.

"You little -!", Robotnik cried out.

"I little _what_?! Are you gonna keep call me little, Eggman?!" Sonic charged at the next robot.

"Argh! I decide what to call you here, hedgehog! Freeze!"

"Whaa! Sonic!"

While Robotnik's words had naturally not been enough to motivate Sonic to stop his attack, Tails' scream was. The blue hedgehog skid to a stop, back at Knuckles' side, and stared at his little two-tailed friend effortlessly struggling in the steel grip of a robot arm that had grown out of Robotnik's floating mobile and caught hold of the young fox.

Pointing the end of his laser gun at Tails, the mad scientist smiled. "Move in any way I don't want you to, and we can all find out what happens to foxboy's head if heated instantly to 40000 degrees… I would be interested to find out, but something makes me think you are not, are you, Sonic?"

Sonic bit his lip, his eyes flashing over the robots, the arm holding Tails, then at Eggman's gun. But right now, he was angry enough to disregard the fact they were totally outnumbered and that the laser would be faster than even him. Logic had shut down, leaving just his momentary big hatred for Robotnik behind to fuel his actions.

Small, but tough and fast muscles bracing, the hedgehog moved to jump Eggman's mobile – and was brutally pulled back by his arm. Joints almost snapping, Sonic nearly fell over. Struggling to keep his balance, the blue hedgehog span round, unloading his frustration meant for Eggman on the red echidna still having a tight grip on his wrist.

"What do you think you're doing?! I had him! Since when are you afraid of fighting! Huh?!"

"I am not afraid of anything, hedgehog!"

"So?! Then what's the hold-up?!" Sonic glared at him, still fuming.

Knuckles frowned. He didn't really fight back even, he just frowned. And he still didn't release Sonic's wrist. "There are moments to fight, and there are some you better don't because all you'll get is yourself and others killed. If you'd start thinking, hedgehog, even you would realize that!"

"I start thinking?! I?! Who was it again being stuck in a four-by-four room for two weeks without finding a way out!?"

Sonic was pulled closer by his arm. "I will tell you, hedgehog, I –"

"Stop! Enough of this! Both of you! One more word and I'm gonna shoot your little pal here right away!" If Eggman's thread wasn't enough to distract Sonic's mind away from his quarrel with Knuckles, the sound of charging energy surely was.

Finally paying attention to their surroundings again, the hedgehog found himself and Knuckles surrounded by robots, each holding a glowing gun readily pointing at the two of them. Eggman himself was still aiming at Tails.

Knuckles let go of Sonic's wrist, the look on his face making it hard to tell if he was mad at the hedgehog or not. Humpfing, Sonic turned away from him, channeling his attention on Eggman. "Alright, I get it." His teeth still ground against each other at having to give in. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, he didn't just surrender! "What do you even want, Eggman?"

"Oh, sometimes, I would like to see all of you dead," Robotnik mused, "but then again, my life needs the challenge. Letting you live and watch through your defeat will be far more satisfying, don't you think?"

Sonic snarled.

"Well, for now, I don't want anything from you, Sonic. Neither from you little friend here." Gesturing with his weapon, he indicated Tails. " _Knuckles_ there wasn't nice enough to help me out with some minor translation problems I encountered while trying to find a new, powerful treasure that'll surely be your end, Sonic. I figured I have a way persuading him to do it anyway, now…"

Sonic blinked in unbelieving bewilderment. "You do all of this… because you lack a dictionary?!"

"Not a dictionary, you stupid brat! My computers of course contain highly developed translation programs, but the material at question seems to be tricky." Robotnik looked down on Sonic and Knuckles. "Now, get moving. That way!"

"And where are we going now? Another beautifully decorated room like the one I found Knux in?", Sonic asked, his temper slowly calming down and casualness dripping back into his speech.

"Much better, hedgehog." Refraining from further comments, Robotnik escorted his prisoners through a number of corridors and halls, until reaching a large room.

One of the walls spotted numerous computer screens, showing either some form of cryptic data or presenting images from several rooms of the underground base. Right in the middle of the room, a large table held several old looking pieces of stone, small sculptures and other ancient relics Sonic had never seen before. Next to the wall opposite of the monitors stood a strange kind of machine for unknown purposes, the most out-standing thing about it the big round barrel held by several heavy gears that made the thing look like an oversized washing machine.

"Someone needs to wash a lot of socks around here," Sonic taunted.

"Silence! You will stop laughing soon enough, pincushion," Robotnik retorted, pressing a few buttons on his vehicle's dashboard, causing the robot arm to shove a once again struggling Tails into a small cage hanging from the ceiling directly next to the washing machine thing. The door slammed close, and the fox gripped the bars, the cage swinging softly from his attempts tearing it open.

"If I were you, kid, I'd spare my energy for better things," Robotnik noticed dryly before turning to Sonic who was once again trembling with rage. The scientist however seemed to find this rather amusing. "Now to you, my spiky friend. Get in that treadmill and start running."

"What?!" Sonic and Knuckles exchanged glances.

Robotnik grinned toothily. "One of my best inventions of stationary Anti-Sonic installations. I purely designed it for purposes like this one. Once I turn it on, the computer will measure your running speed. If it drops below 500 mph, a high amperage current will be passed through these wires into the metal this cage consists of… I'm turning your most annoying weapon against you, hedgehog. And trust me, it will turn against you sooner or later. So you better excel at stamina, or watch Tails here getting toasted alive. Brilliant, aren't I? Now get in there and start running, Sonic, if you don't want to see the fox toast right away…"

Sonic sighed, throwing a glare at Eggman, but catching Tails' at least slightly desperate look. "This is idiotic even for you, Eggman," he said, hopping into the treadmill. "Defeating me, by making me RUN? Get some sense!"

"Be quite and run, hedgehog. We'll all see how long you can keep it up." Robotnik seemed overly confident with his invention, Sonic found.

"Oh well. Are you sure this thing can keep up with me?" Grinning casually, the hedgehog started running, the curved floor moving beneath him, the more and more rapid rotation causing the shafts and spools supporting the giant barrel to become overly noisy. "Did you even put oil on this thing?", Sonic asked, looking out at Eggman.

Tails and Knuckles smirked a little at their friend's displayed lack of concern, Robotnik however didn't seem too mad at it this time. He completely ignored Sonic, turning to Knuckles who still stood surrounded by armed robots.

"Now let's get to business, shall we, Knuckles?"

The echidna grumbled, and Sonic outright admired his self-control in that moment. He'd thought he would jump at Eggman's throat.

"I didn't get you there," Robotnik noticed.

"I already told you a hundred times I won't help you," the guardian snapped then.

"Oh, still stubborn, are we?" Robotnik laughed. "You seem to still lack understanding for your situation, my dear echidna. Let me explain the new status quo to you. While it is true that I need you, for now and probably also for further steps of my plan and can't effort you getting hurt, that doesn't go for your two comrades here. Especially one of them is a real pain in the neck for me, as you should know, getting rid of him wouldn't cause any crocodile tears on my part. Something tells me this doesn't go for you, though."

Knuckles narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth, but he didn't move.

Eggman continued. "For now, I find it much more amusing having the three of you to watch and behold my plans, but this could change at any time. Then the two over there," he gestured at Sonic and Tails, "would be obstacles. Now the deal is simple, Knuckles. You help me with this little problem I got, and I let your friends out of there. It depends on you and how fast you work how long that'll take.

I have time, and I know better than your hedgehog friend when he says he can't be beaten by making him run. It's all a matter of duration. How do you think Sonic will fare in a day? Two? Three?" He chuckled. "I doubt it'll even take that long. But no matter the exact time, biological creatures require rest and food if they are to perform at a constant level of high activity like this pesky blue hedgehog does now. Not supplying him with either of these basic things, all I have to do is wait…"

Sonic frowned, deep down knowing Eggman was right, but too stubborn to allow himself to believe it. Watching Knuckles, he realized the echidna wasn't as stubborn, at least on that matter.

"Alright, Eggman, I'll do it. If you release Sonic and Tails as soon as I'm done. You know you can't make me tell things I don't want to tell." Knuckles' arms folded and he sternly looked at the human.

Sonic smiled briefly at seeing Eggman's façade darken for a second. Apparently he had made bad experiences with Knuckles… and given the situation Sonic had found his friend in it made him proud of the guardian.

"You don't have to do it, Knuckles!", Tails threw in, but the echidna told him off with a short shake of his head.

"We got a deal, echidna. Now get working!" Robotnik leaned back in his seat, for now seeming rather pleased with himself.

"No, he won't," Sonic insisted. All heads whirled to him.

"I think this is my decision, Sonic," Knuckles remarked, frown evident on his brow.

Keeping up his running at a steady pace, Sonic shook his head and smiled a little. "I don't say anything about your decision, Knux. If you think that's the way, fine. But you won't translate a single word before he's wheeled in some good foodstuff for ya, understood? You don't starve someone who's supposed to be working on something. That's just fair."

"Sonic, we don't have time for –", Knuckles contradicted.

"Yes we have. I'm buying us time." Sonic grinned. "After all the work Eggman put into this thing here, it'd be a shame it I wouldn't give it a nice workout, would it?"

Knuckles shook his head, but his face wore a thankful, yet somewhat disbelieving smile. "You're crazy, hedgehog."

"So they say." Sonic shrugged a little, brushing a hand over his quills. It felt weird to be running and not having the wind rush past him.

Eggman had followed their short conversation without moving. "Fine," he said now. "If the pincushion is asking to push his and Tails' chances, I won't complain." He turned to one of the robots. "E-7680, go and bring a meal for the echidna. Knuckles can begin looking at the texts while we wait."

* * *

Almost four hours later, the sounds of the spinning gears didn't disturb his concentration much any more. His stomach was full and he felt almost unrealistically energized, but since he was fully focused on the demanding task at hand, Knuckles' mind had decided rather quickly to block out everything not related to the hieroglyphs. During the past few minutes however, the increasingly audible sound of labored breathing had managed to slip through the barrier of concentration.

Eggman seemed to have noticed it too. "Oh," he spoke up, gloatingly addressing the blue hedgehog," is someone working up a little sweat?"

Looking up from his work for a moment, Knuckles glanced over at the treadmill just in time to see Sonic stubbornly shake his spiky head. "Nah, I can run like this twice as long!", the hedgehog answered, on first look even appearing casual. A slightly deeper look however revealed the wet film that covered the peach skin on his muzzle and the way the short blue fur on his forehead clamped with dampness. Knuckles looked back to the texts.

"Are you sure, hedgehog?" The robotist chuckled. "Well, maybe Tails isn't too interested in finding out, is he?" He turned to the little fox. "What do you say, Tails?"

The caged two-tailed boy frowned, his cerulean eyes narrowing to what was the closest to a glare you'd see on his face. "I'm not worried. I know I can rely on Sonic. And on Knuckles. You're the one who's not at all trustworthy around here, Eggman."

"Aww, that's not very charming of you to say, foxboy. Your spiked friend here wouldn't need to strain himself further if Knuckles would work a little faster…"

Feeling everybody's eyes back on him, the red echidna looked up from the stones again. "I go as fast as I can. Translating this stuff isn't as much of a cinch as you seem to think it is. Your computers failed at it, remember? Most words of the old language have more than one translation into your language; I need to consider the context very closely to find the most fitting one if you don't want to walk the wrong way. But I'm almost done. Give me five minutes and let Sonic and Tails go."

Robotnik shook his head. "Uh-huh… The deal was _you_ finish my translations and _I_ release your friends."

"What you call a 'deal' is a nasty extortion," Sonic threw in gasping.

"Spare your breath, pincushion," Robotnik needled. "You better –"

"You better be silent, all of you, if you want me to finish," Knuckles grumbled. "Who can work surrounded by that noisy chatter?"

The echidna's comment effectively silenced all three; although only one of them was truly interested in the correct outcome of his work, the other two still were well concerned with the time it took him to finish.

"Okay, I think I got it now…", Knuckles noticed a few minutes later as he turned to the rest of the unlikely group.

"Let me hear it!", Robotnik ordered impatiently.

Stubbornly Knuckles folded his arms on his chest and shook his head, causing his long dreads to swing softly. "No. We had what you called a deal. Let them go. I won't talk before you did it, and you know how little I talk if I don't want to by now."

Grunting in defeat, even though he was the one holding the gun, Robotnik complied, entering a few codes into his machine. The cage's door swung open almost soundlessly and Tails hopped out into freedom, using his namesakes to clear the gap over to solid ground.

No longer forced to keep up the speed Sonic leaped off the treadmill, landed in a slight stagger and leaned on his knees, his chest heaving as he tried to calm his breathing, pulse hammering against his ribcage and the muscles in his legs trembling. "Was about time…", he noticed, only briefly glaring up at Knuckles.

The only reply the echidna could think of to this was an apologizing shrug. It wasn't like he'd let Sonic run some more for the fun of watching it… but if he was honest he could understand the hedgehog's not perfect mood.

"I am still waiting, Knuckles," Robotnik reminded him, gesturing to his weapon. "I might happen to get a nervous finger…"

"I get it." The red echidna sighed. "Fine, I'll make it short, okay?" The scientist nodded in agreement and Knuckles continued. "Although I understand the words, not much of it makes sense to me… These three smaller stones hold information I wouldn't call very useful so far. The first one speaks of the nature of the treasure, the one you showed me earlier."

Eggman nodded, sparing Knuckles the trouble having to repeat the exact content and revealing Eggman's own translation wasn't near as good as the human still thought.

"The second and third," Knuckles continued," don't seem to make any sense at all. One speaks of a 'key in your hands' or 'key of your hands' – I'm not too sure here either… however you'll need that key thing after having heard the 'whistles of magic' and followed the 'trail of light'. I have no idea what that could be either." The echidna shrugged. "Judging from the form of the stones, I'd put the other one in front of it. It also speaks of a key, but a key that is in two parts and somehow uses a 'scale' of some sort."

"These are directions," Eggman noticed. "It tells us what to do once we are at the place the treasure is hidden at. Probably the content will seem clearer there."

Knuckles nodded. "I guess. Wherever that place is, once we're there we have to use key and the scale, then the 'whistles of magic' and follow the 'trail of light' to a place where you have to do something with another key…"

Excitedly Tails twirled his double namesakes. "It's a guide! Once we know where to start, we'll just have to follow the directions!"

"So, where is that place, Knuckles?" Robotnik looked at the echidna demandingly.

The guardian replied with a nonchalant shrug. "It doesn't say directly. The round plate speaks of a place with stones, water… and a 'shining path that defies gravity'."

"Hmm…" Grunting in definite disappointment, Robotnik dropped back into his seat without lowering the gun.

Tails rubbed his nose thoughtfully. Through the puzzles he had almost forgotten they were prisoners. "I have no idea where that could be."

"You don't? Well, I do." Sonic grinned when the others turned around to him and casually kept wiping sweat off his face.

"You do? How do you know, Sonic?" Tails' blue eyes were wide with awe as he stared at his brother.

The hedgehog shrugged. "Y'know the old ruin things in the jungles? In Mystic Ruins? A great part of them lies underground. The floor of most chambers is flooded. There is a series of large and high rooms that have switches moving panels on the walls. If you move them correctly, the panels will form a path with glowing purple arrows on them. Staying on the panels you can walk up the walls or along them as if the panels had their own gravity."

Knuckles blinked. "I think I know the ruins and the rooms, too; also the glowing panels... but I never noticed you can walk them up. I always just climbed."

"I prefer running things up over climbing." Sonic shrugged again.

"I am not interested in your preferences, hedgehog." Robotnik gestured with his gun. "Get moving; we're taking a little joy ride to Mystic Ruins."

"Let them go," Knuckles demanded. "You have me to help you out."

"Oh, I know how much you help me out without a little pressure." The mad scientist shook his head. "Besides, I might need someone to disarm some traps for me. You're all coming."

Angry mostly with himself for being in Eggman's hands like this, Knuckles clenched his fists, receiving a soothing glance from Sonic who cocked his head towards him a little before shaking it. "Let it go for now," the hedgehog said quietly.

Knuckles grumbled, watching Tails fetch the stones for Eggman. In spite of the uselessness of it, the echidna was still moping when Eggman directed him and his friends out.


	19. Path of Light

"Are you sure this is the right temple, Sonic?", Robotnik asked while his floating vehicle slowly descended. In the distance a couple ruins stuck out of green jungle.

Sonic nodded, shifting uncomfortably in his bonds. "Yes, I'm sure. It got a small sandy platform near the top. There are two doors; we have to take the right one, looking at the ruins."

"Good." Robotnik let his mobile go fully down after finding the platform Sonic had mentioned. A few commands typed into his machine's control panel moved a robot arm that one by one lifted the three bound prisoners out of a transport box attached to the piloting capsule and untied Tails' hands. "Free your two comrades. But remember…" He lifted his laser gun and waved it at the trio.

Sonic groaned. "We all get it. You're the one with the big bang thing around here…"

The human chuckled. "Exactly. And as long as the status quo remains, you'll get walking. Lead the way, hedgehog."

"Whatever." Sonic shrugged.

Wordlessly Tails and Knuckles followed the hedgehog while Robotnik followed all of them.

Sonic led them through a two doors - that opened as he stepped in front of them without any visible mechanism that caused the movement - into a very large and very dark room.

"Watch out, there's water all around the path. Oh, and flaming arrows." Sonic pointed into the darkness in front of them. "It's not very far and you can use these torches and mirrors to help light the room… but that doesn't make the path much easier. Just watch your step. There's spikes, too."

"Oh, yes, I remember that…" Tails shrugged. "I guess I'll stick to what I did last time we were here, Sonic…" Spinning his tails, the fox lifted up into the air.

Just a minute later Sonic stopped on a stony platform surrounded by water to let the others catch up with him. Snake-headed statues framed the rectangular stone, their glowing eyes giving out a soft, orange light. In front of Sonic, the path ended, the light showed a few pillars sticking out of the water, but no other footholds.

"This is a dead end!", Eggman shouted in rage. "You led us into a wrong direction, pincushion!"

Sonic shook his head. "No. There is ground just outside what we can see. Last time, there were rings I could use to lightdash across the gap." He turned to Tails. "You'll have to fly me over…"

Tails nodded. "No problem." After the flying fox had carried Sonic over, Robotnik followed without any strain to himself in his floating mobile. Knuckles just took the daring jump, a short glide let him grab hold of a wall just above the water surface and he pulled himself up to join the others.

"See, Eggman? No reason for playing with your toy." Sonic grinned.

Knuckles frowned. All three of them had at least temporarily accepted Eggman's power and provoking the mad scientist didn't seem to be a good idea at the moment. Right now the echidna was contemplating ideas how they could overtake the human. The best time seemed right when they had found… whatever they were going to find and Eggman was distracted.

For now the echidna had to admit the atmosphere of the place was starting to get to him. Whenever he was at an old ruin… he just felt so… like speaking quietly and admiring everything. He couldn't shake off the feeling he was entering a sanctuary, a place from a time that was long gone, but somehow... it had survived in these walls. It felt to Knuckles as if the very past itself was looking down on him and he was stealing glimpses at something that had been long lost by the time he'd been born.

A groan from Sonic knocked Knuckles out of his thoughts. "Oh, I hate places like that!"

Catching up with the hedgehog, Knuckles quickly found out what about this interesting place wasn't Sonic's taste. The blue hedgehog stood aside of a rapidly flowing trail of water. From the looks of it, the ancient people building the temple had canalized a river.

"We go that way?", the echidna asked just to verify his conclusions. Sonic nodded numbly. Not knowing what to say, Knuckles turned away and leaned a little into the tube the water was rushing through. He'd decided not to make fun of Sonic's hydrophobia any more back in the jungle when he'd seen his friend almost drown, but the lack of teasing had taken away his usual reply… leaving nothing to say.

"I guess I could try carrying you through," Tails offered. Sonic smiled and muttered a 'thanks'. Turning to Knuckles and Eggman, Tails tilted his head. "Your vehicle should be able to float through. A couple hundred meters through that tunnel there is a waterfall that leads into the open again. It's quite a fall, but if you don't mind getting wet, Knuckles, you should be easily able to glide."

The echidna inclined his head. "I'll manage."

Gesturing with his gun, Robotnik pointed at the water tunnel. "After you, my furry friends."

* * *

Grabbing a hold of Tails' hands again and letting the fox fly them both through the tunnel, Sonic found it was shorter than he remembered it being... "A lot nicer here if you stay dry," he commented, looking up to his brother.

Tails smiled. "Yup. And it's quite a view."

Looking back down, Sonic found the waterfall was really quite high. Last time he'd been here his mind had been occupied finding a place for him to fall to that wasn't flooded. Now he could notice the twinkles of the water below and the green plants it grew. A couple meters lower than him and Tails, a slightly bedraggled Knuckles was gliding past. Dropping onto the grass in front of another stone arcade and door, the echidna shook the water out of his pelt.

"Aww, did you get a little wet?", Sonic grinned when Tails set him down on the same tiny meadow.

Knuckles turned to him with a glare. "Shut up, hedgehog, or I might forget myself and make you get wet, too."

"Silence! You better keep going!", Robotnik ended the little confrontation before either of them had the chance to provoke the other one further.

Stepping through the next door rather slowly and cautiously, Sonic considered for a moment to get Eggman in front… just in case some kind of ancient temple magic had moved the giant, round boulder he'd run from last time back into place above the door… but a careful, suspicious glance up proved the trap was still disabled. Probably a one-time installation.

Without the stone however, the path down to another door was as boring as the part that followed; but at least it finally brought them into the room with the moving panels.

Crossing his arms casually, the blue hedgehog turned to his nemesis. "See? This hedgehog gets you wherever you want in no-time."

"I am almost tempted to say I was impressed." Eggman leaned down from his mobile to the three Mobians. "So now, on with it."

Suddenly finding all looks on him, Knuckles took an unconscious step backwards. "Hey, why're you looking at me?"

"Because you read the original text of course." Robotnik grinned. "We reached the room with the moving panels. What do we do now?"

"It didn't say!", Knuckles remarked annoyedly. "It just said we have to go to the room with the magic gravity-defying panel things!"

"Maybe," Tails started before Knuckles and Eggman could start an argument, "maybe we have to follow the panels? They were mentioned, so maybe they're important."

"So, where do they lead?", the scientist questioned impatiently, eyes still fixed on the red echidna.

"I don't know! When I was here, I dug into this room, found three Emerald pieces here and that was it!", Knuckles snapped. "I never looked at the stupid panels!"

"Why don't we just try and see?" Sonic pointed at a big round switch that sat in knee-deep water. Jumping on it three times moved the panels enough to make them form a path that led vertically up the wall.

While the hedgehog followed it, Knuckles just climbed up the wall, Tails flew and Robotnik followed them slowly hovering. Standing on a big stone platform, Knuckles remembered the trap just in time to jump out of the way of a set of spikes rapidly moving towards him.

Sonic was already standing on the next switch. Dodging their way up the walls through spike traps, flaming arrows and suddenly moving parts of the wall, the group finally reached the top of the room. No more panels led further up.

"Last time," Sonic pointed, "I used some rings to get over there. It's another big room, with a painting of Perfect Chaos."

"So, if this is where the panels lead us… What do we have to do here?" Tails thoughtfully looked around.

"We have to find something that looks like a keyhole and something that could be a scale. It might be a wall painting, a statue or something else," Robotnik mused. "Whatever. Get searching. And you better be quick and thorough about it."

* * *

Knuckles grumbled quietly to himself while he walked along the walls, looking for something suspicious. He turned around when Sonic shouted, finding the hedgehog pointing up a wall.

"Hey, what's this thing up there?"

Following the direction of Sonic's outstretched arm, Knuckles needed a moment until he spotted the small protruding shape a couple meters above their heads. "I'll look," he announced. Not that the idea of positioning something up there seemed very promising to him, but it wasn't really a miss if they took more time… but cClinging to the wall aside of the thing Sonic had discovered, the echidna had to admit it was more promising than he liked.

"What is it?", Sonic called up at him, getting a stiff neck staring up to Knuckles.

"I think I found our keyhole. It's about as thick as my little finger," Knuckles replied.

"You have fingers?", Sonic teased, ears twitching amusedly.

"As if that was new to you." Knuckles shook his head in annoyance. "There is something else; it looks like a stick with a flat plate on the end. There's some kind of structure carved in…"

"Tails, go up and give that to Knuckles," Robotnik ordered, passing a scepter-like object to the fox. "It is the only thing out of the treasures I found on Angel Island that could classify as a key."

"The only thing out of what you _stole_ on _my_ island," Knuckles corrected.

"Aww, you're not still mad at me for this, are you Knuckles?" Robotnik chuckled.

Tails reaching him at this moment spared Knuckles the trouble to answer. Hovering aside of the echidna, the little two-tailed fox slowly pushed the thin end of the stone scepter into the hole Knuckles had discovered. It fit in almost completely before reaching the end with a soft stony thud.

The attempt to turn the key in the hole however didn't work out as well. "I think I could turn it, but there is a resistance blocking it. It's not yet unlocked." Tails released his hold of the key's end and flew a little away from the wall.

"Of course, we have to use the scales first." Robotnik dived into his vehicle, digging up the other relics he'd 'claimed to himself' earlier. "If we put the correct weight on what Knuckles called a plate, this will open the lock and allow us to turn the key."

Sonic frowned. "Sounds great in theory, Eggy… But all the stuff you have there is too big to fit onto that small thing," he pointed out, a smug grin slipping onto his face.

Robotnik frowned. "If the three of you want to live to the end of this day you better find something that does…"

"And there they are always saying _I_ was impatient!" Sonic shook his head. "You need to learn to chill, Eggy."

"Watch your mouth, Sonic." The scientist glared down on the blue hedgehog from his vehicle.

Only half listening to the bickering between the two arch-enemies, Tails still regarded their discovery in deep thought. "Knuckles?"

"Uh?" The red echidna turned from looking down on Sonic and Robotnik. "What's it?"

"I think I have an idea. Can you take off your necklace for me?" Tails pointed.

"My…" Knuckles glanced down on the golden pendant. Eggman had never shown interest in it during his captivity… Still holding his position on the wall with one hand, Knuckles took off the medallion. "You think it fits?"

"From the looks of it it could, we have to try it out I guess." Tails shrugged, flying up a little higher to get a better look on the shape carved into the stone.

"After what I've seen in these ruins and know about hidden treasures… setting up the wrong thing might activate a trap killing all of us…" Doubtfully Knuckles looked at Tails.

"Well," Tails nodded downwards, "if this keeps up Eggman's gonna shoot Sonic."

The echidna shook his head. "Idiot hedgehog can't keep his mouth shut."

"He's angry at Eggman, y'know? And even though he masks it with cockiness, it really annoys him we have to help him and can't kick him where it hurts like he planned," Tails explained protecting his brother. "Don't be so hard with him today, okay?"

"Hm. I'll try. But first he calls me an idiot, then he hugs me, then he says he wants to 'kick my butt'…" Knuckles smiled a little. "People just confuse me sometimes. I'm not that used to stuff like that..."

Tails cocked his head. "Still?! Knuckles, you know us for years! I made friends with Sonic in… minutes!"

"Maybe you're quick with it then, or I'm slow. Whatever... I've needed long to see past the ally bit, and though it's good having made friends people sometimes just seem strange, okay?" Knuckles grimaced as he tried to explain himself to the little flying fox.

"But you like us, right?" The kid frowned.

"Yes, I really do," Knuckles hurriedly assured him. "I didn't mean it like that! Sonic and you probably are the best friends I have! I just meant –"

Tails giggled lightly. "I know what you meant, I think. We have to try not being too hard with you either…" He blinked an eye at the echidna.

Knuckles relaxed. "Yeah… So, now that we all go easy on each other again, can we get back to the bit with the traps?"

"Sure." Taking the pendant from Knuckles' hand, the young fox turned it around in his hands. "I'm rather sure it fits perfectly, but we can't do anything but try it."

Sighing Knuckles inclined his head at him. "Alright. Go for it, Tails."

Nodding back at Knuckles, Tails carefully lowered the medallion down onto the stone plate thing. It sunk into the hole left there with the small sound of metal scratching over rock and came to a rest with its corners smoothly sitting in the edges of the carving.

Tails and Knuckles were about to start cheering when the stick that held the plate tipped downwards and a loud rumbling sounded from the wall that shook both it and the ground, knocking Knuckles falling to the floor.

* * *

Hands fisted in anger, Sonic had almost forgotten the mystical atmosphere of the ruins, or the search for the hidden treasure, or his friends trying to find out how to go on. Standing here doing nothing but getting insulted by Eggman unable to actually do something 'cause the laser gun still pointed readily at his chest and experience had shown light moved faster than even he did pulled hard on his nerves. If he'd been any less upset he'd clearly noticed it wasn't the smartest thing to do in a situation like this to start a verbal fight with his captor, but feelings that had been bottled up for weeks, then completely shaken and added some others needed an outlet.

The harsh reply to another set of Eggman's teasing insults caught in his throat just before he could be stupid enough to say them, or actually carry out their content and try jump and kill the human. Spinning around, mouth slightly agape but speechless, Sonic stared at the cause of the sudden noise.

A second after the wall did also the floor started shaking. Dumbfoundedly Sonic watched Knuckles drop down from where he'd hung on the wall, land staggering, completely lose balance and fall to the floor belly-first. Another second later the hedgehog found himself lying next to his red friend, still struggling to understand what was happening.

Apparently, he wasn't the only one. "What the hell did you idiots do?", Robotnik screamed, thanks to his vehicles anti-gravity engine as unbothered by the shaking as the still flying Tails.

"We don't know what's wrong!", the two-tailed fox shouted back. "We just –" Tails stopped dead in his speech when with a final shake half of the wall moved sideways.

"What the…?" Sonic stared at the dark gaping hole.

"We just opened the door," Knuckles complete Tails' sentence, a small, smug smile darting over his face as he stood up.

"Way past cool, guys." Sonic grinned, quickly getting past the surprise and at least momentarily also his quarrel with Eggman.

"Yeah, I was worried it didn't work," Knuckles noticed, offering his hand to the hedgehog still on the floor.

Accepting it, Sonic quickly stood too. "It looks as if it worked just great."

"Yeah." Knuckles nodded. "Oh, and Sonic?"

"Huh?"

"I'm sorry I called you an idiot."

The hedgehog blinked. "I thought _I_ called _you_ an idiot."

Knuckles shrugged. "Well, probably you did."

A grin appeared on Sonic's face. "So, either we're both idiots or neither of us is. Anyway, we're even."

The echidna smiled. "If you say so."

Sonic's pointy ears twitched and he tilted his head, for a moment regarding Knuckles, then he grinned again and playfully elbowed him. "I missed that."

Knuckles briefly looked at the point where Sonic had hit him. "Yeah," he muttered quietly. Looking back up, he found Tails and Eggman standing in front of the new door, discussing something.

As if feeling the gaze on him, the little fox turned around. "It's a long tunnel," he said.

"I've seen that, yeah." Sonic walked over to join him.

"And it leads to _my_ treasure." Robotnik laughed. "In case there are any traps in there, you go first." He gestured with his weapon towards the hole in the wall. "After you."

Sonic shrugged, walking into the dark tunnel as casually as if he was just entering his own house. Knuckles followed closely, not much less leisure-looking.

Tails smiled. Now that these two had finally made peace, getting rid of Eggman should be a cinch, right?


	20. Path of Light

The sparely positioned snake-lights on each side of the blank walls gave just enough light for them to be able to make out a next slightly brighter lit part when it just seemed the tunnel would be completely swallowed up by darkness. The large searchlight on Eggman's floating mobile didn't help them in any way Sonic found; the bald scientist had focused it on his three captives walking in front of his vehicle. That way, Eggman could see them and all of their actions just great, but the bright light on the spot they walked on blinded the trio and made it hard to see any details of the tunnel's makeup.

Walking between his friends Sonic contemplated if it was a good idea to just grab the two of them and run for it; the hedgehog was sure they'd be a great deal away before Eggman even realized they were taking flight. On the other hand, the matter of traps still stood, and Sonic had to realistically admit he could hardly see a thing. What he knew about the ruins' layout wasn't exactly promising as some other tunnels he'd been in had a strange tendency to end over a groundless pit, a deep pond of water, a set of spikes, or on the simplest terms, the wall of a ninety-degrees angle. Sonic wasn't a stranger to running into stuff, in fact, it happened fairly often; but with his body being able to withstand the pressure of a supersonic run came a high tolerance also for crashing into concrete walls. He didn't want to take bets on his two friends, though, and he couldn't effort losing one of them… again.

Sonic's musings were interrupted when Knuckles spoke up. "How do we know we're going the right way?"

"Aren't we?! _You_ tell us! You haven't been telling me any nonsense, have you?!" Robotnik leaned down from his vehicle. "You wouldn't lie to me, Knuckles, would you?"

Knuckles grumbled, but remained silent otherwise. The silence accompanied the group for another minute, then Sonic found his legs making contact with something on his shin just above his ankle and his feet were pulled away under him, causing him to trip over and land on his hands and knees.

"Hey! What the –?" Quickly turning over, the attempt untangling his limbs ended little gracefully with the blue hedgehog falling onto his tail. Sitting there, he dumbfoundedly looked around, realizing Knuckles and Tails had encountered the same problem he had. Shielding his eyes from the sharp light stinging them, Sonic glared up at Eggman. "What did you do that for?"

"I didn't do anything, silly hedgehog!", the human complained, obviously not bothering to reposition his searchlight and help out the three on the floor. "Now get up!"

Knuckles had already done that and now knelt next to what had caused the three of them to trip up. "There's a rope spanned between the walls…"

"A rope?", Sonic echoed, crawling back to his feet.

"I wonder what it – Whaaa!" Tails interrupted his speech tumbling out of the way of a stone almost the size of his head falling from the ceiling.

"What?!" Steadying his stand against the ground having started to shake yet again, Sonic gawked at another piece of dislodged ceiling crashing down next to him, then he had to actually dodge more of them.

"What is happening!? What did you idiots do!?", Robotnik shouted at the three Mobians while his Egg-O-Matic bounced him around in his seat trying to avoid the stones raining down on them.

"Looks like one of the traps we spoke of," Knuckles noticed, struggling to keep upright by flailing both arms. "The rope we pulled by tripping over it must have activated it!"

"Argh! Stop it!" Angry about this disturbance of his plans and trying to save himself, Robotnik lifted his laser gun to aim at the falling rocks instead of Sonic and his friends. He hit a few, but the energy beams missing the stones seemed to do more damage to the crumbling ceiling than it did any good. Staring up with eyes wide open, Sonic watched a large piece becoming loose and falling towards them.

"Sonic!", Tails shouted.

"NOOOOOOOO!", Robotnik screamed.

The fragmented piece of ceiling was a mere meter above his head when survival instinct finally kicked in. Without thinking, Sonic caught hold of Tails' arm and Knuckles' wrist and bolted forwards, no longer minding the vague danger a run into unknown darkness presented. The image of being crushed alive seemed far more vivid to him at the moment.

Tails screamed when Sonic yanked on his arm, but the hedgehog couldn't care. Red-sneakered feet pounding the ground, Sonic fastened his hold and pushed his legs for more speed until the rush of air about his ears drowned out the noise of the collapsing tunnel and Robotnik's shouting.

Sonic had little time or mental capacity to consider what might be going on behind him. He knew now full well why he hadn't favored the idea of a high-speed run through these dark tunnels. He hardly saw the ground beneath his feet, yet it moved past too fast for the conscious mind to follow. Turns became apparent in the last possible moment, and sheer reflex saved Sonic several times from making intimate contact with raw stone.

Above of it all, his heart was rapidly boosting adrenaline through his body, making him feel almost strangely hyper. His muscles however had not forgotten the hours of constant strain in Eggman's washing machine treadmill thing and were asking for a mere casual, relaxing jog to regenerate, and now protested painfully against the renewed demands of full power.

Biting his lip, Sonic lowered his head into the wind, not allowing his pace to waver.

* * *

Amy silently groaned to herself and flipped through the channels of her TV without proper motivation. There was nothing on worth watching. And, even worse, there was nothing on about Eggman or his robots. It was as if the scientist had disappeared off the planet's face.

That in itself wasn't that unusual. Quite often he vanished without a trace for months, normally after another defeat by Sonic. But in the end, he always turned up again, popped out of some secret hideout with a new plan to take over the world. Just, so far Amy had never waited for that to happen.

Her gaze slowly wandered over to her phone, but she shook her head to herself. If she called again, one of the Chaotix would surely come over to lock her into some cupboard or something just to keep her to stop getting on their nerves.

Pulled away from the tempting phone, Amy's green eyes roamed her apartment. After she had returned home, she'd taken off most of the pictures on her wall. She'd hardly even remembered what the wallpaper looked like. Now you could see it again, a kind of soft rose tone. She'd kept a few pictures of Sonic, those she liked best, and a few group pictures. Next to them, she'd hung up a photo of Cream and Cheese, and she'd bought herself a large poster that showed a sunset at Emerald Coast. The orange sky on it didn't quite fit too well with her pink wall, but the picture looked nice. Amy loved the beach.

Actually, she liked the new look of her house. She even liked her new life. Kind of. She just didn't know what to do with her time if she didn't spend it chasing after the fastest thing on two legs.

For the late afternoon, Vanilla had invited her for tea. That would give her something to do, but it didn't help that it was only midday. What would she to with five more hours?

The pink hedgehog sighed and switched off the TV, then headed for the phone anyway. Last time she had called, Charmy had told her something about a new case they had taken. Searching someone's lost chao. Amy shrugged. Maybe she could help out.

And after that, maybe she'd take the train out to the Mystic Ruins and pay a visit to Sonic and Tails. If they were even home. But after what happened to Knuckles just a few weeks ago, they'd probably be in need of cheering up. Maybe she could help with that, too.

* * *

Holding on to Sonic's left arm with both hands, Knuckles looked back over his shoulder as they rushed on. As far as his sight went in here, he couldn't see anything collapsing anymore. Turning back around, Knuckles noticed distractedly how they shot through a kind of portal, and Sonic finally slowed down.

More or less casually Knuckles regained his feet. "Boy, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

Sonic chuckled, stretching. "Sorry. I didn't really have the time to consult you about my plans…"

Knuckles shrugged. "I know. Thanks."

Sonic had already turned to Tails who was massaging his left shoulder. "I'm sorry, bro."

"Nah, it's nothing. I should have expected it kinda," Tails smiled. "I'm just glad we made it."

"We did." Sonic looked around. "Alright… and I guess we lost Eggman."

"Was about time. I dare say I couldn't stand his company," Knuckles commented.

"Now all we gotta do is find this treasure before Eggman does." Tails' double namesakes span lazily, but his ears were perked.

"I think we just follow this tunnel here. There can't be much more to come, can there?" Sonic pointed forwards.

"I don't know. Old ruins like this tend to be full of traps." Doubtfully Knuckles followed the hedgehog anyway when he started walking.

"Don't you think they should be done with them by now?" Sonic shrugged his shoulders, his palms pointing upwards. "I mean, this entire mystery puzzle business. Why don't they just say: Go there to find the treasure and don't kill yourself and others with it?"

"I'm not sure if Eggman's right and it is a weapon anyway." Knuckles frowned.

"You're not sure? Well, Eggman is." Tails looked puzzled.

"Yes. He showed me the piece of stone that got him on this treasure hunt in the first place. He translated it himself, but as we already know, his computers might be great at a lot of stuff; but they aren't exactly experts on old echidnean idioms." Knuckles gave a small chuckle. "I haven't told him, but what he claims to be a _powerful_ treasure is a _precious_ treasure instead."

Sonic blinked and started laughing. "You mean, it's possible whatever we find is just a bunch of gold and jewelry?"

Knuckles shook his head. "Unlike many other people, the old civilization didn't consider gold or normal gems very valuable. Unless an object held some sort of power, like the Chaos Emeralds, simply taking it the way it was didn't make it valuable. Only if something was crafted from these materials, something useful or just artwork, the materials gained value through the work put into them. Also things made from less valuable materials could get very expensive that way; sculptures made of wood or stone for example, pieces of clothing. Knowledge, too."

"Sounds kinda sensible." Tails smiled. "So, do you think it'll be more a collection of artwork or something?"

Knuckles shrugged. "I have no idea. In the end, the value of a good always depends on the point of view of the person classifying this value. Something that was considered precious decades ago now might look ridiculous to us."

"Hm." Sonic's pointed ears twitched. "Well, there's just one way to find out, huh?"

Tails grinned. "Yeah! Find the treasure!"

"Guys? I think we just got a step closer," Sonic noticed, pointing forwards and sounding a tad bit exited.

Knuckles stopped, staring at the thing in front of them in surprise. "That's –"

Apparently, Tails had recognized it too. Sitting at the tunnel's end – dead end, even – "A Mystic Melody shrine!"

"I didn't think I'd see these things again," Sonic said, walking around the shrine. They all knew these relics; if you played a certain tune next to them, some magic whatsoever would open hidden doors, let objects appear or disappear and other weird things. Sonic had always wondered what the shrines exactly were and how they even did… what they did.

"Now I know!" Tails bounced up and down next to the hedgehog.

"What do you know, Tails?" Irritatedly Knuckles watched the little fox hop around.

"That's the 'whistles of magic'! You remember?" Tails still pointed at the shrine almost accusingly, but he'd stopped hopping.

The others exchanged a glance. "You mean…"

"YES!"

"That's – not so great then," Sonic immediately corrected himself. "Unless one of you still has a flute, we're stuck here without a way on."

"Oh. You're right." Tails slumped his namesakes so they dragged limply on the floor, clearly showing off his disappointment.

"Umm… maybe we don't need a flute…" Knuckles frowned thoughtfully, looking down on the shrine.

Sonic blinked. "Aw, come on. Don't tell me you can whistle that tune…" Knuckles didn't deny, and the hedgehog's face took a look of outright surprise. "You… can whistle that? Really?"

"Don't look at me like that!" Knuckles folded his arms, almost feeling insulted. Intimidated at best...

"How did you learn it?", Tails asked curiously.

Knuckles shrugged, somewhat uncomfortable with the situation. He didn't really think he wanted to tell the others he just had a good memory for sounds. Being always alone for years teaches you a fine hearing for sounds around you; and Knuckles had learned early to mimic various birds for example. He found it rather easy to memorize a melody, especially a not very complicated one. "I just remembered it quite good, that's all," he said, a little sharper than intended as he felt like having to defend himself.

Sonic grinned. "Take it easy. It's cool, really. I can't whistle very well. I do anyway." The grin broadened. "But now that I think about it, if I had a guitar here I could play it, too."

A little smile crept on Knuckles' face. Sometimes he still wondered how that hyperactive freak had learned playing an instrument. Probably a natural anyway.

"Now can you try it?", Tails pleaded, his tails twirling excitedly once more.

Knuckles shrugged, looked at the shrine, at his friends, and back at the shrine. "Could you.. I dunno…? Look away? It feels… awkward doing this with people looking…"

Sonic laughed. "You're still somewhat of a weirdo, Knux. But okay." Crossing his arms, he turned his back on the echidna, his two ears however turned around as far as they could in curiosity.

"Sonic."

"What?", the hedgehog looked back at him, green eyes twinkling innocence, and Knuckles realized the action had most likely been an unconscious one.

"Forget it." Watching both Sonic and Tails turn away again, the echidna was stuck looking at their backs now, finding the whole thing didn't get less weird much. Sighing, he focused his attention on the shrine, for a moment closing his eyes to remember every note correctly, and whistled.


	21. The Rainbow Ends Here

The melody seemed to gently float through the room, causing only small echoes that added a chilly notion. The mood lasted for about five seconds, then Knuckles stopped, and Sonic span round to look if it had worked.

Apparently, it did. From the shrine on, expanding in gentle spirals up to almost the ceiling, golden spinning rings had formed.

"Rings…" Knuckles' word broke the short moment of silence. "Now what are we supposed to do with these?" He scratched his head.

"They're rings!" Sonic snapped his fingers. "We collect'em!"

"Sonic, wait!" The hedgehog froze at Tails' shout, and the fox turned to Knuckles. "How did the puzzle continue again?"

"There was something about a 'trail of light'," the echidna mused.

Sonic shrugged. "Well, if this isn't it, I don't have an idea what else it could be. If there aren't any more complaints, I'll just do two things at once: collect the rings and follow the path they make."

"What do we others do? You're the only one capable of light dashing, plus once you did it the rings will be gone." Tails rubbed his chin in thought.

"Well, probably collecting them will make something else happen. We think about that later," Sonic decided. If he concentrated on it the hedgehog could use his chaos skills to be attracted by the spinning rings, an effect Tails had once called something akin to a reverse ring magnet. "Alright, guys, here goes nothin'!" Approaching the ring closest to the mystic shrine, Sonic spread his arms and let himself being sucked towards it.

The first ring absorbed into him with an audible pling and a brief surge of energy that ran through him. The blue hedgehog was lifted off his feet, weightlessly floating up to the next rings. Within a mere second he'd traveled almost the entire spiral, when Knuckles' voice rang through the dizzying waves of energy going through him, the for Sonic himself noisy plings that seemed to originate rather inside his head than outside, and the light daze these effects combined with the rapid and uncontrollable changes of direction had knocked the hedgehog into.

"Sonic, look out! You're gonna hit the wall!"

Sonic blinked, through blurred vision acknowledging the echidna's concern, but all he could do within the fragment of an instant left was hold his breath, squeeze his eyes shut and try bracing himself for a high-speed impact.

Instead of finding his face plastered into a stone wall however, the plings just kept coming, at least ten or maybe even twenty more, then they stopped and Sonic was handed back to gravity. It kicked in immediately, tearing the hedgehog's body out of his floating position and he dropped down. The reflexes that came naturally with being born with the gift of super speed let him land on hands and knees.

Blinking quickly to fight off the disturbance of ring dashing, Sonic shot a look around. He was in a small room, a single, big stone door situated a couple meters in front of him, lit by several small dots of light like the eyes of the snake statues in other places of the ruins. "Wow…"

"Sonic?! Are you alright?"

"Can you hear us?!" The voices of his friends sounded dull and echoed a little.

"Yeah, I'm good," Sonic replied into nowhere in particular. Standing up, he circled on the spot, taking in the chamber in more detail. "I'm in another room. Here's a door but it's locked and I clearly didn't come through it. I seriously have no idea how I got in here."

"You went through the wall somehow." Knuckles sounded utterly confused even through the stony echoes.

"Probably the rings allowed you to phases through matter," Tails speculated, and Sonic could colorfully imagine the look on Knuckles' face at this statement.

"I didn't feel like hitting anything," Sonic said. "Well, other than the floor in here." There was just silence from the others for several seconds. "Guys? You still there at –" He cut himself off at finding he had no idea where his friends were in relation to him. "-wherever I came from? It's just that I don't like being stuck in this weird room without a way out of here…"

"I think I just found it, Sonic," Tails called. "The wall… isn't a wall. At a spot next to the ceiling, just where you vanished, is a hole, I guess a little more than a meter high and half a meter wide."

"It perfectly looks like wall, but you can just move through it as if there was nothing," Knuckles added. "We're coming over now."

"Alright." Sonic's green eyes dashed around, trying to figure out where they could enter this room.

"Whoa, it's really dark in here," Tails noticed, sounding a little nervous, but less echo-y.

"Just feel with your hands carefully," Knuckles advised.

"Wherever you are at the moment, I went through in a flash without problems," Sonic said. "I don't think there is anything dangerous in that… whatever it is."

"It's a tunnel of some sort. We can walk through it, but there's no light," the echidna answered.

"Well, here is light, and from what you're sounding like you're coming closer to me," Sonic gave back, still looking out for any signs of the others.

"I think we – whaa!" Knuckles' reply was interrupted in mid-sentence by a yelp, and Sonic took a reflexive step backwards when a large, white-gloved hand ghostly moved out of the solid wall about two meters higher than the ground he stood on. It was followed by a foot, seeking floor but meeting thin air, causing its owner to lose his balance and stumble forwards with a yelp. Sonic jumped backwards another bit, and stared down on Knuckles having landed little gracefully flat on his belly. "Oww…"

"Hey, you okay?" Sonic couldn't stop himself from finding the situation slightly comical.

"I'm fine… I think…" Knuckles crawled back to his feet, briefly brushing over a skinned knee.

"Sonic? Knuckles? What happened?", Tails called, puzzled and worried.

"Knux fell out of the wall," Sonic remarked, fighting off a grin.

"Be careful where you stand on," the echidna warned, turning away from Sonic and looking up to the wall he had just emerged from. "The tunnel ends suddenly, you can't see it."

"Probably you should just fly," Sonic said. "We don't need the third of us crashing on this floor, do we?"

"Okay…" The well-known sound of Tails' spinning namesakes followed, then the fox' head and torso shifted out of what appeared to be a wall. Looking over his shoulders, Tails curiously regarded the stones he could move through without any resistance. "I wonder what that is. A hologram, maybe? It's certainly not stone. It looks like it, but there is nothing…"

"It's kinda cool… and kinda spooky," Sonic commented.

"Yeah…" Knuckles turned away, focusing on the door Sonic had found. "So what's this?"

"Another dead end," the hedgehog sighed.

Tails landed next to the others. "There must be a way to open it…"

Sonic looked at the door, at his friends, and back at the door. His ears flicked backwards a little. "Any ideas?"

* * *

Tapping a foot on the floor, creating a quick thudthudthud sound, Sonic watched his two friends inspecting the stone door. As far as he could tell, with limited success. "And? Anything turned out yet?"

"Well," Tails turned over his shoulder, "It has this strange thing that looks like a lock. See here?" He pointed, and Sonic walked closer.

Spiky head tilted, the hedgehog regarded the object Tails had called a lock. It was the only part of the big door that wasn't just plain rock. To Sonic, it looked more like it had been later installed on the door. Measuring about twenty-five by ten centimeters, the square piece of rock showed an elliptical carving inscribing it, with two small, conical holes at the foci, separated by a little more than ten centimeters.

Rubbing his nose, Sonic doubtfully glanced at Tails. "You sure?"

The fox shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of near helplessness. "Of course not. But the door has to open some way, and this is the only thing I can see."

"Point…" The blue hedgehog folded his arms. "Do you have any expert treasure hunting secrets you wanna fill us in on now, Knux?"

The addressed echidna knelt in front of the mysterious door-locking thing, the fingers of his right hand slowly tracing the structure. "I'm afraid not…" His thumb ran over the left of the small holes. "Maybe this needs a special key to open. You can't see anything, but it isn't really the best light in here. There might be a contact in these holes. Or they're just for decoration…"

"Did your ancestors already know abstract artwork?" Sonic frowned. "I thought this weird stuff is a new invention."

Tails giggled. "I always thought you like it?"

"Some is kinda cool, but much of it is just odd," the hedgehog grinned. "But I always thought it's more or less new."

"What we're looking at and what Eggman dug out before is maybe the youngest piece of my people's history I've ever encountered," Knuckles mused. "You know, finding something originating from a time after Pachacamac's defeat and Chaos' rampage is hard. I think the few survivors of the catastrophe had other worries than building large temples and pile up treasures or leave literature behind for the future to behold. Societies only do that in times of prosperity."

"How do you know it's younger than most of the other stuff?", Tails queried curiously.

"It's easy to tell from the language used. You know, I studied most of the relics I could find on my island when I was young; it was the only thing to do other than surviving and watching over the Master Emerald." Knuckles shrugged and stood up again, looking at his friends. "I don't remember how and when I learned reading the symbols left behind on Angel Island, or even speak the old language as well as the surface people's tongue. I just know these things. I read a lot while I was all alone. Everything I found. Chronicles, philosophical texts, writings about plants and animals, about medicine, methods of warfare, legends about the Chaos Emeralds and other things, poetry, texts on laws, whatever I came across really. I know all of it quite well. There are just few texts in the chronicles from newer dates, but I can tell Eggman's tablets were, too."

To Sonic, all of this sounded a little too vague, but Tails looked really interested. "So, what time do they come from?"

The echidna shook his head. "It could be anything from a few hundred years ago to around the time I was born. I don't remember ever seeing anyone of my kind, but I know puggles aren't able to survive alone. So at least one adult echidna had to be there to raise me to an age where I could take care of myself."

"Puggles?" Sonic grinned.

"That's what a baby echidna is called," Knuckles explained willingly.

"Puggle? Sounds kinda funny. But cute, too." The blue hedgehog's grin broadened.

Knuckles shot him a glare, but just kept talking. "After hatching, a puggle lives on the mother's milk and stays in her pouch for several months. Echidna's are about a year old until the child can eat solids."

"Pouch? You got a pouch?" Sonic struggled not to laugh and totally didn't succeed.

Looking annoyed, Knuckles rolled his eyes. "No, I don't. I'm male. The females do."

"If echidnas grow up at a rate similar to other Mobian species, even when they eat normal stuff the kids can't live without help," Tails noticed.

Deciding to try being serious again, Sonic nodded. "You're right. But you were only four when I found you and couldn't remember your parents either. So maybe Knux was about the same age."

"And then something happened that made all the others that were left die out." Knuckles sighed, but there wasn't much feeling behind it. He seemed to have accepted his fate of being the last, as good as you could accept something like that, Sonic thought. Still, the hedgehog understood well when Knuckles insisted they returned the topic to opening the door in front of them.

Studying the presumed lock again, Tails frowned, then looked at the echidna. "Don't be mad if I ask this now… Do all echidnas have spikes on their knuckles?"

Knuckles exchanged a look of surprise with Sonic, then stared at the fox. "What?!"

"I mean, is it a common thing? Or more like my double tails or Sonic's super speed?" Tails appeared rather serious about his question.

Knuckles' brow wrinkled. "I'm not entirely sure, but when Tikal made me have these visions of the past, I saw other echidnas, and they had the spikes, too."

Sonic's green eyes narrowed in concentration. "I saw them, too, but I don't remember what their hands looked like. I remember they were all pink… And Tikal doesn't have spiked knuckles, I think…"

Tails nodded to their both comments. "So, maybe some had and some didn't."

"Great, Tails," Sonic deadpanned. "Now what does that help us?"

The fox pointed at the small holes in the stone. "I think Knuckles' knuckle-spikes might fit in there."

For a moment the two others stared at each other, then at Tails and the door. "You think…?"

Tails nodded. "Worth a try, isn't it? There was something with hands in the puzzle…"

Knuckles still stared. "I think so…"

"Then what are you waiting for?" Sonic grinned, curious now what might happen. He watched Knuckles walk back close to the door, doubtfully look at his hand, but reach out for the stone. A hushed gasp ran through the trio when the small spikes on his hand slid into the holes without resistance, and a quiet clicking sound echoed through the chamber.

Staring at his hand, Knuckles shook his head in disbelief. "You were right, Tails."

"Isn't he always?" Sonic chuckled. "Now does it open?"

Pushing against the stone door, the echidna smirked a little. "Let's try it out…"

With the sounds of loud scraping, the large stone door slowly moved until it revealed the opening behind. The room was filled with thick darkness, the distant echoes of droplets falling onto wet stone, and a slightly mouldy smell billowed out.

"We need light," Knuckles noticed.

Green eyes dashing about, Sonic quickly found what they looked for. The wall next to the open door held a small protrusion hosting a pile of wooden torches. "Look there!"

Reaching for one of the torches, Knuckles nodded in appreciation. "The tips were dunked in pitch or oil or something like that. From what I can see, it looks still good."

"We just need something to light it up, then," Sonic noticed.

Pointing at the small storage platform, Tails indicated a little box. "What's this?"

Frowning, the blue hedgehog reached out for it. "Looks like a case for expensive pencils or something," he said, flipping it open. "There's some kind of wax in it." Now curious, he pulled it away, too, uncovering a few orderly lines of tiny pieces of wood. He blinked, staring down on the tiny box' content. "Knux? Did your ancestors know matches?"

When Sonic looked up, his friends seemed puzzled. "There are matches in there?", Tails asked, somewhat bewildered.

Sonic nodded. "Uh-hu. Now that's what I call a friendly welcome. They even left light behind so we can find their hidden treasure better… Does that make sense to you?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Well, judging from all the hints they left behind, whatever lies in here was supposed to be found one day. Treasures in graves for example are not to be found, but there are no instructions how to get there."

"Hmm." Doubtfully Sonic regarded his red friend. "So, you're saying they want us to get here all along? Then what are the traps for? What is it with collapsing tunnels and automatic arrows trying to kill us? Doesn't make that much sense to me…"

The echidna gave another vague shrug. "It might be we have to prove ourselves worthy of getting here."

"Ah, this is another odd moral thing…" Sonic trailed off when Knuckles glared at him. "Well then, why don't we put some light on things and see what we were considered worthy to have now?"

Soon, both Sonic and Knuckles held a lit torch, while Tails carried an armful of fresh ones in case the first burned down, and the box of matches. Excitedly the fox pointed into the darkness. "Now can we go?"

"Sounds good to me!" Sonic grinned and started to walk into the room.

* * *

Unlike the other chambers before, this one they were in now was clearly part of a natural cave. Stalagmites and stalactites grew out of floor and ceiling like giant sharp teeth. The flickering, orange torchlight threw long shadows, ghostly wandering across the bizarre rocks as the trio advanced deeper into the cave, resembling hundreds of creatures hidden in the shade behind the stones, watching and following them. Some of the stalactites dripped with water; the small, recurring sounds of droplets falling into small ponds of surprisingly clear water or just the hard floor adding to the atmosphere.

"It sure is creepy around here…", Tails noticed, keeping close to the others.

Smiling softly, Sonic looked at his little brother. "Nah, it's just an old cave. Isn't it kinda cool?"

Tails looked doubtful, but Knuckles spared him the trouble of answering when he pointed forwards. In midst of a slightly larger pond, a group of stalagmites surrounded a small chest.

"I think we found something," the echidna noticed.

"Yeah." Stopping at the edge of the pond, Sonic and Tails watched Knuckles hand his torch to the fox and then wade through the little more than ankle deep water.

Leaning down to lift the wooden chest, the echidna turned over his shoulder. "It stayed mostly dry, I think. The water is even shallower over here," he said, carrying their discovery over onto dry ground and placing to down.

Kneeling down and holding the torch over to put more light on the chest, Sonic studied it in curiosity. It was about the size of a regular shoe box he always got his sneakers in, made from a dark wood and decorated with elaborate scrimshaws. Sonic's ears twitched. "Is it just me or is it a little small for an almighty treasure thing?"

"That depends on the treasure. I think it's large enough to hold three Chaos Emeralds at least, and those would easily classify as great treasure, right?" Knuckles shrugged, examining the chest.

"Point." Sonic smirked.

"Guys?" Tails' index finger traced the wood. "Am I right saying it has no lock?"

Sonic and Knuckles exchanged a puzzled glance, neither of them had paid attention to that yet. But the fox was right, a simple, golden frame-joint held the cover closed.

"You're right, Tails." Knuckles smiled.

"Then what are we waiting for? Open it, Knux. You brought us here, so I think it's just fair you get to open it." Sonic grinned.

The echidna nodded, carefully flipping the hinge. It protested with an ear-piercing screech, but opened flawlessly. Taking a deep breath, Knuckles slowly pushed the cover open, all three of them leaning over the chest to catch a good look inside, but before Knuckles had fully opened it, a loud crashing noise behind them let all of them jump in shock and the cover fell close again.

Spinning around just in time to see it, Sonic stared at the laser cutting through one of the larger stalactites, causing it to come crumbling down with a noise copying the first as it fell to the floor, stone grown over thousands of years shattering into a million pieces within a few seconds.

"Not so fast!"

The hedgehog whirled back at the sound of the notorious voice. "Eggman!"


	22. Pandora's Box?

"Indeed, Sonic." The bald human laughed. The Eggmobile, just as Robotnik himself, appeared unscathed. "You thought you got rid of me, didn't you? Hah! As you can see, you were wrong." The doctor struck one of his notirious poses. "Now that I have your undivided attention, hand me my treasure."

Knuckles growled. "Your treasure?"

"And what if we don't?" Sonic's eyes narrowed.

"I'm just going to take it from you, hedgehog," Robotnik said, the metallic clamping of robot feet stomping closer starting to fill the room. Just a moment later, Sonic found himself and his friends surrounded by robots, the muzzles of multiple laser guns glooming colorfully in the semi-darkness of the cave. "As you can see, I called for some reinforcements…" The scientist laughed. "Now hand over my treasure!"

Sighing, Knuckles picked up the small chest.

"Knuckles, no!", Tails shouted, but the echidna shook his head.

"He won. I don't want any of us dying for this." Knuckles was secretly sure Eggman couldn't make use of whatever was in the box anyway, he'd have never given it away otherwise without a fight. But as things were, it seemed the easiest way letting Eggman discover he'd bothered in vain on his own.

"Clever boy..." Robotnik smiled, ordering his vehicle's robot arm to snatch the chest from Knuckles' hold. As soon as it placed it in his lap, the human flipped it open and started digging into the contents.

All Sonic and friends could do was watch, but the experience turned out to be less uncomfortable than the hedgehog had feared. Eggman's face soon turned into a look of disgust and he tossed a piece he'd apparently found inside down to land in front of the three Mobians.

"Just what is this?" Robotnik visibly fumed. "Knuckles, tell me what this is for! Now!"

The red echidna knelt to pick up the object. It turned out to be a piece of thick tissue, about half a meter in width and a full meter in length, the shorter ends adorned with long fringes. Looking over Knuckles' shoulder, Sonic found it showed a picture.

"It looks like a meditation carpet," the echidna explained. "It is a ritual item."

Sonic fought back a chuckle. "You should really try this mediation thing yourself, Eggman! Maybe you'll find out the sense of life sitting on this thing! Or you can say a magic spell and make it fly…"

"Silence, hedgehog!"

"What else is in this thing?", Tails dared to ask the angered scientist.

"Argh! Pieces over pieces of papyrus! And a lot of these small, black pebbles!" Robotnik dropped one of the stones.

"There is water all over this cave, the stones might be there to avoid that the treasure chest gets washed away," Knuckles guessed without having been asked.

"Useless junk! There must be something more! You're hiding it!"

Now Sonic outright laughed. "Face it, Eggman. You have been fooled!"

"What are you saying, pincushion?" Robotnik almost stood in his seat now, towering over the three friends.

Knuckles smirked. "Sonic is saying that you've been searching the wrong thing all the time… Even the first tablet you showed me didn't say anything about a powerful weapon, it spoke of the 'most precious creation' the author of the stone tablet had ever made."

"And as Knuckles explained us, in the old echidna society, something was made valuable through the work and value put into it," Tails continued. "So, if the originator of this text was a carpet knotter, his best work might have been a great treasure for him…"

"You…!"

"Just deal with it, Eggy." Sonic grinned up at the enraged scientist. "Look on the bright side. It's never really about what you get, but how much of a blast you have getting it. And wasn't this whole treasure hunt just an awesome adventure?"

"Oohhhh, just shut up, hedgehog!" In a new fit of anew anger, Robotnik threw the complete little chest down from his floating vehicle, then adding what other relics he held at the time. "I'm out of here! But I shall not be defeated this time; there is still a way for me to win, even without a powerful treasure. This will be the last time you interfered, Sonic!"

"Yeah, right." The hedgehog leisurely folded his arms. "Keep babbling…"

"I'll have the last laugh, hedgehog, I promise!" With a posure of victory, Robotnik turned his vehicle and quickly flew off, his robots following his retreat just as fast.

Sonic and his friends just looked after the human, the bright searchlights on his mobile making him easy to spot now that he had turned them back on.

Robotnik stopped just before he would have vanished from their sight, turning around to shout over to them. "Even if I didn't find what I came for, this is still a day of success. The three of you will rot down here and never interfere with my plans anytime again! Muhahahaha!"

"Sonic, he's gonna lock us in!", Tails shouted upon finally realizing what the scientist was up to.

"Not while I'm around," the hedgehog announced, dashing off to stop his nemesis that now aimed his vehicle's big laser cannon at the ceiling. It unloaded with a large blast of light, exploding upon hitting the ceiling. The shockwave threw Sonic, already rather close to it, off his feet; he crashed into something hard, colourful stars flashed across his vision and a cloud of dust swallowed him up.

* * *

Espio carefully jumped down from City Hall's bell tower, his left arm slung around the small, green chao. He landed next to the fountain in front of it and quickly got off the road where his friends gathered around him.

Charmy happily clasped his hands together. "We did it!"

"Well, of course we did!" Amy laughed, exchanging a high-five with the bee. After all, it had been the two of them who had picked up the chao's whimpers from up on the tower.

Espio nodded silently, handing the rescued animal to Vector. He really didn't understand how chao always got lost in so weird places. How did they even get there? Anyway, they had found the little critter.

"Another case solved," Vector announced, cradling the chao.

Again Espio nodded his head. "I was about to say that."

His 'boss' laughed raspily, slowly beginning to walk along the road. "Now we just bring you back home, huh?" He patted the chao's head, 'causing it to bounce in his arms.

The quartet didn't have a far way to walk and soon they reached the square in front of the station. The chao garden was in a hotel right next to it.

"Can we stay for a moment with the chao, can we?" Charmy fluttered up and down. "I wanna watch a race! Please?"

Espio exchanged a glance with Vector and nodded a little. The job was done, they could afford a few minutes. A stay at a chao garden was always nice, too.

"The train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon," a voice sounded out of a loudspeaker above their heads.

"Oh, I wanted to catch this one," Amy noticed. "I'm sorry to leave like that."

"You're not coming to the chao garden?" Charmy pouted.

"We can go there some other time together, okay?" The hedgehog girl smiled.

"Okay." The little bee nodded.

"Where are you going?", Espio asked.

"I wanted to say hi to Sonic and Tails, I guess." Amy smiled. "I haven't seen them in a while. I thought maybe they would like someone to talk to or something."

Espio smiled back. "Fine. Bye, then."

"Yeah, see you later, guys!" Amy waved at the three detectives and turned around to run over to the station building and up the stairs to its entrance.

"I wouldn't have thought she'd be working with us just a few weeks ago," Vector noticed looking after her.

Espio shrugged. "People change."

Vector nodded. "Just Eggman doesn't. Wonder where that bastard is."

"He's hiding somewhere again," Charmy threw in. "He always does. Maybe because he still owes us money and is afraid we'll get him when he shows up."

Vector grinned broadly. "Probably. And I know who else still owes us money." He shifted his arms around the green chao, looking at the animal. "Let's get you home, little guy."

* * *

"-ou alright? Sonic! Hey! Say something!"

Nervous shouting pierced through his clouded mind. He was vaguely aware of his head pounding dully, and his mouth and nose felt as if he had some kind of irritant in them. He coughed and slowly lifted his hand to feel for his aching head. "Ow."

"Sonic? Are you okay?"

Reluctantly opening his eyes at Tails' continued calls, the hedgehog tried a quick mental check-over of himself. As far as he could tell, all his hands, feet, ears, spines and other important body parts were still there and more or less functional. "I guess…"

Looking up, Sonic found Tails leaning over him. "Phew. That's good."

Again rubbing his head, the blue hedgehog threw another look around. He lay on the cave's floor, a roll of what appeared to be the weird little carpet thing under his head. Tails was holding a torch. "Uh… What happened?", Sonic asked, carefully moving to sit up.

"Eggman blocked the way back," Knuckles said, walking over to the others. "Sadly, he was really good at it. There's no way through."

"You knocked your head when you fell after he exploded something," Tails added. "Are you sure you're fine?"

Sonic nodded. "Uh-hu. I guess it's just a bump. How long was I out?"

Knuckles shrugged. "Not even a minute. Nothing to truly worry about." He sat down next to his friends. "But we're stuck here."

"At least Eggman didn't get what he wanted," Sonic said. "By the way, what is it with this carpet here? What's so special about it?"

"No idea." Knuckles shrugged.

Handing Sonic the torch, Tails reached to unroll the carpet. "Look, there's a picture on it!"

"Yeah, a really nice one. Must have been a lot of work making this thing," Sonic noticed, running a finger along the delicate structure.

"Knotting a good carpet can take weeks or more," Knuckles explained, also studying the thing. "I have never seen a carpet with a real picture on it. Usually, it's more some kind of ornament or a more or less geometric image."

"This is almost a photo." Sonic regarded the picture in admiration.

It showed the very detailed image of two echidnas, a man and a woman. The male's fur and spines were a bright red, aside of a sickle-shaped white marking on his chest. He leaned on a spear in his right hand, decorated with feathers and small jewels and a golden chain dangled a pendant on his chest. His left arm embraced the female. Slightly smaller than the male and orange-furred, her body was hugged by a white, long dress that softly flowed around her slender form, her long dreadlock spines held back by a headband of sorts.

"Two echidnas," Sonic remarked. "And look, he's got the same marking you have, Knux! And he's got that chain, too!"

Knuckles nodded silently, seeming captivated by the picture. It wasn't often that he saw others of his kind, even if just on a picture, Sonic realized. Looking back at the picture, the hedgehog found, even more with this particular echidna than any of those he'd seen in Tikal' visions, that he looked pretty much like an older version of Knuckles. When he announced his opinion aloud, Knuckles remained silent, still somewhat entranced by the picture, but Tails looked closely between him and the man on the carpet.

"You're right, he could just be ten... maybe twenty years older you," the fox said to Knuckles. "Or, almost at least. He's got blue eyes." He looked back up at Knuckles. "But I guess your purple's gotta be some kind of rare color, nobody I know has an eyecolor like that."

Sonic frowned down on the image. "Ah, it can't be too rare for echidnas, Tails. Look, she's got purple eyes too."

Tails looked puzzled for a second. "Yeah, you're right. Not so rare then. I think maybe -" He stopped in mid-sentence and pointed at the carpet again. "Sonic, there are three. Three echidnas."

Blinking in surprise, Sonic had to admit he had completely missed on the third figure on the image. Half covered by parts of her loosely flowing dress, the little scarlet body was almost hidden on the female's arm. The tiny echidna's big, violet eyes, just like its mothers', seemed to look out of the picture, the small fingers firmly holding his mother's clothing, the backside of the small hands showing two tiny ivory spikes.

"It's a family picture," Sonic said. "They have a baby!"

"Puggle, Sonic," Tails corrected. "And I think it's not all a baby anymore, it's gotta be around two."

"Well, I think it's kinda cute. Wonder if you looked something like this when you were small, Knux…" Sonic smiled. "… Knux?"

The red echidna stared at the picture, and it needed several moments until Sonic's words seemed to have reached him. "Eh… what?"

Sonic's smile softened. "Never mind. What do you think, maybe they were some kind of important family and this carpet was made for them to celebrate... something."

"He's a guardian," Knuckles said, his voice sounding kind of dull to Sonic.

"A guardian? Like you? Guarding the Master Emerald?" Tails looked awed.

Knuckles nodded. "Yes. He's got the mark and he's wearing this pendant we found with 'guardian' written on it."

Tails smiled at him. "That's cool. Maybe they're some distant relatives of yours then."

It was Knuckles' turn to looked awed... If he could look much more awed than he already was since they'd started looking at this carpet, Sonic thought. "I'm... sure they are ancestors of mine," Knuckles said slowly, running a fingertip along the side of the carpet. "Guardianship has been passed down from parents to children since the beginning of the echidna society."

"Wow." Sonic gave Knuckles a grin. "Then it's good we came here after all. We found you a family picture."

When Knuckles failed to say something, Tails looked between him and the carpet again. "Who knows, maybe it's you. The little echidna, I mean. The colors fit. Or it's your dad, or grandfather, or great-great-granduncle... It's cool, really. I wish I had a picture with anyone of my family on it." He looked up at Sonic again, trashing his tails. "But that's okay, I've got you. And you too, Knuckles." Tails smiled. "That's much better."

Sonic smiled softly and ruffled the fur between Tails' ears. "Yeah." Silence fell for a short moment in the cave, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

Knuckles' fingers traced the picture knotted into the carpet. "I've never had anything... like this," he said quietly.

Sonic smiled at him, too. "Let's look at what else was in there, okay?"

His echidna friend nodded, placing the carpet on the floor with almost exaggerated gentleness.

Tails was the first to pick up the chest from where Eggman had dropped it. "Eggman was right," he announced. "All that's in here is paper and lots of these small black stones…" He picked one up, turning it around in his hands.

When the fox seemed more interested in the stones than anything else, Sonic dug into the wooden box himself. What Tails had called paper felt almost more like a thin sort of tissue. It had clearly been written full with symbols once, but now mostly unclear stains and blurs remained. "It got wet, I think," the hedgehog noticed. "The ink blurred. I doubt we can read anything of this." In hopes the echidna would know more to do with it, Sonic handed him the pieces of paper.

Knuckles leafed through them slowly, but Sonic was right saying most of it was as good as blank now. "You're right. The water maybe was higher in here and got into the chest during the time it stood there."

"Wait! What's with this part down there on the bottom?" Sonic pointed. A single page seemed to have been able to withstand the wetness at least at the bottom of it. "Can you read it?"

Knuckles held his torch closer to the writing. "The last, big symbol there is something I don't know, it might be the writer's signature. The rest is... text."

"Normal hieroglyph kind of text, yes." Sonic blinked an eye at Knuckles, but the echidna didn't look up to see it.

"Do you want me to read it or not?"

"Of course! Go ahead." Sonic smiled, curiosity getting to him again.

"It's a date," Knuckles realized when he looked back down onto the parchment. "This is the last page of... whatever this text was."

"Just a date? When was it written?" Tails also looked rather curious, though slightly disappointed.

Knuckles stared down onto the page, somewhat incredulously. "On the 5th day after the 10th full moon, in the year 3987 after the Great Flood..." He trailed off.

"The Great Flood?" Tails blinked slowly, then made the connection. "Perfect Chaos' rampage?"

Knuckles nodded numbly. "And 3987 years after that was... this was written only... thirteen years ago..."

Sonic stared at him, at the carpet where Knuckles had laid it on the floor, at the mostly unreadable parchment, at Knuckels again. "Would that mean... that little echidna is really you?"

"I... don't know..." His red friend shook his head, looking suddenly lost. "If... only something of this was still readable then I'd..." Hearing Knuckles' voice break, Sonic shifted the torch into his left hand to have his right free to gently place it on the echidna's shoulder and squeeze softly.

Slowly Knuckles lowered the paper down onto the small treasure chest, and looked up to Sonic, whose hand still rested on his shoulder. It didn't surprise the hedgehog much to see his friend's violet eyes watery.

"Knuckles?", he asked carefully.

"I…" The echidna cleared his throat. "Do you think…?"

Sonic smiled a little. "I think it doesn't matter. You've said it yourself, in some way, if this guy was a guardian before, they'll be related to you. Is it important how? Important is that you once had folks and that they surely loved you, right?"

Knuckles nodded numbly, reaching out to trace a finger along the image again.

"Umm, I think Tails and I will leave you alone for a moment and try if we can find another way out of here, okay?" Sonic patted the echidna's shoulder a last time and stood up when he received a distracted nod.

"But-!" Tails didn't move to follow Sonic when he strolled off.

"Come on, Tails." Sonic turned back around, waving the fox to follow him. "We don't want to stay in here forever now, do we? I could use a little help…"

"Okay, I'm coming!" Finally standing up, too, the two-tailed fox ran after the hedgehog. Catching up with him, he followed Sonic deeper into the cave. "Will Knuckles be okay?"

Sonic smiled. "I'm sure he will. He just needs a little time alone, I think. And _we_ need to find a way out of here. Any ideas?"

Tails looked around. "I'm not sure. Stop for a moment, okay?"

Sonic did. "Now what?"

"If we stand still and the flame of our torch still tilts in some direction, that means there is movement of air through the cave… and that means there's another exit!" Tails flipped his fingers.

"You're a genius, little bro!"

Ten minutes later and having ventured a lot deeper into the cave, the air was starting to smell fresher and the flame on the torch in Sonic's left hand started to flicker. The hedgehog smiled. "You were right," he remarked, causing the little fox at his side to beam in pride.

"Sonic, I think I see daylight!", he announced, point forwards and starting to run for it.

Sonic followed in a reasonably slow pace, he didn't mean to blow out their single source of light in here. When he caught up with Tails, the young fox looked less enthusiastic again. The way outside was a hole the size it barely allowed to squeeze a fist through, neither of them would get out.

"Now what do we do?" Dispirited, Tails' namesakes dully thudded the stone ground.

"Hm." Stepping closer to the small hole, Sonic tried looking through. All he saw was giant green leaves. "There's some kind of bush outside," he noticed, starting to knock his fingers on the rocky wall around the hole. "I don't think it's very thick. I guess we'll have to recruit our buddy with the rock-piercing punch now, don't we?"

Tails smiled. "You're right. Knuckles should get us through here in no-time." He turned to walk the way back into the darkness of the cave. Walking in silence, the two friends and brothers returned to where they'd left the echidna.

They found Knuckles sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Obviously he had gathered up everything that had been in the treasure chest and placed it back in there, the wooden box rested tidily closed in front of him. He looked up at hearing the others approach, and Sonic found the shock of earlier seemed to have lifted and there was an almost serene smile in his eyes he wouldn't fully allow on his face.

"Hey," the hedgehog started, noticing on a side-note how full of weirdness and just stressful in many ways this entire day had been for all of them. The evening wouldn't get excessively long, that was for sure.

"Hey," Knuckles smiled, rising to his feet and lifting up the small treasure chest along with all the other relics Eggman had carelessly dropped to the ground upon his retreat. Somehow it was a miracle nothing of the stuff was broken.

"Are you feeling better?", Tails queried, for once more blunt than Sonic used to be.

A chuckle came from Knuckles. "I think so. Don't worry, Tails. In fact, I think I found something great today, didn't I?"

Grinning broadly and playfully blinking an eye at the echidna, Sonic nodded his agreement. "Didn't we all?"

"Eggman didn't," Tails remarked and the three shared a laugh. "I'm sure he's already back at his base plotting a new scheme to have his revenge. If he has any sense of realism, he can't really think locking us in here will keep us away for good…"

"Talking of us being locked up..." Sonic tilted his head at Knuckles. "You have to lend us a hand."

The red echidna allowed himself a short grin. "Now if that's all…"


	23. Unusual Treasure

The wall crumbled under a lot of noise and hundreds of stone pieces followed by a cloud of dust sprayed onto the jungle plants obscuring the cave's exit.

Hopping through the mess, trying his best not to drop the armful of ancient stuff he held for Knuckles, Sonic looked around in his newfound freedom. "Thanks a lot," he said, his tone mockingly polite and he bowed at Knuckles following behind him.

Accepting the joke, the echidna inclined his head with the same exaggerated politeness. "It was my pleasure."

Tails laughed, watching Sonic pass Knuckles his belongings. "Now where are we?"

Throwing a look around, Sonic shrugged. "I think I know. The temple should be over there…" He pointed through the thick undergrowth.

"You sure?" Knuckles quirked an eye ridge.

"No." Shaking his head, Sonic casually started to walk away, looking over his shoulder at his friends. "I always get lost in this weird jungle. Seriously, it looks all the same around here!"

Annoyed, Knuckles muttered a curse under his breath, but Tails stopped Sonic before the hedgehog had a chance to run off and try his luck with randomly taken directions. "I'll just fly up and check which way to go, okay?"

Sonic froze, turned back to the others, and smirked. "Now that sounds like a plan, little bro!" With a rarely seen patience, the hedgehog waited until Tails descended again.

"Okay, the temple we came from is over there," he informed the others, causing Sonic to grin.

"My saying, right?"

Knuckles grimaced. "But that doesn't help us much, does it?"

Sonic slumped. "No. Our plane is still hidden in that forest next to Eggman's base where we left it this morning."

"Your plane? But we crashed with it!" Now the echidna looked genuinely surprised.

"I built a new one," Tails said, as if he did this kind of thing on a daily basis. What was, Sonic considered, kind of the truth.

"In two weeks? You're kidding me, right?" Baffled, Knuckles looked between Tails and Sonic. "You already had a spare plane standing around somewhere and just needed to finish it, didn't you?"

"Don't look at me; I didn't do anything in it." Sonic grinned. "How about this: Tails fills you in on the details while the two of you get this stuff up onto the ruins' highest spot where I can pick you up, and I juice and get our nice new Tornado here in a flash?"

Knuckles nodded, and Tails felt compelled to give the blue hedgehog some advice. "Be gentle on the engines, Sonic, they got a lot more power than our last, but I think they're prone to overspin the propeller if you aren't careful with the blade pitch control. Oh, and the flaps don't work in all modes yet."

Sonic grinned, shutting the fox up with a casual pat on his shoulders. "I'll manage. I've flown my first plane before I even knew you. I promise I won't pin your baby to the first best tree I find…"

"If you do THAT, Sonic, _I_ promise I'll –"

Sonic didn't wait to hear Tails' 'promise' out.

* * *

Another confrontation, another miserable outcome. Grinding his teeth in anger and disgust, Robotnik thought back to his latest encounter with that terrible blue hedgehog ever spoiling his plans. How often was he going to have to endure seeing that pesky rodent laugh into his face at the failure of his plans for world domination?

Robotnik's hands fisted. He would show Sonic, one day, he would be the triumphant one… The last laugh… would be his.

Today however seemed like another wasted attempt, another dead end. Powerful creation, heritage to the future… HA! It was a stupid carpet, for crying out loud! What was to come of this?

Dusting himself off as good as was possible, Robotnik entered his underground base, but some of the stains the dust of the cave-in he'd so barely escaped just wouldn't let themselves being brushed off his red suit.

Heavily dropping into his well-cushioned lawnchair, Robotnik just briefly closed his eyes, then let them wander around his room. Numerous screens presented surveillance videos from all over the base and up-to-date information on the production progress for all of his currently running models of robots.

On the bright side, he noticed – counting out the few dozen robot guards the hedgehog and his friends had destroyed upon coming here– that he didn't need to go and rebuild everything entirely anew from a pile of rubbish on like he usually had to when an encounter with that irritating hedgehog didn't went according to plans…

In spite of what some people might think, Robotnik wasn't a complete illusionist. He knew that most likely Sonic and his friends would find a way out of the cave sooner or later, but the fact they would need to search for it first and it would hold them back for at least some time was satisfying enough for now.

What still left the matter of _later_ …

Looking past the humiliation of having been tricked into wasting his time pursuing something of absolutely no value, Robotnik found this time his ' _loss'_ wasn't as humiliating as his former experiences with the pesky rodents. In fact, looking at how Sonic had not been able to spoil his plans at all, but they had been spoiled by default even before they had started to be carried out – by matters he couldn't foresee or influence – today was a good day in Ivo's life. He had been so _close_. He's had the hedgehog, and he's had his friends. If the treasure chest had contained what he anticipated, he would have won this time.

His moustache twitched when Robotnik chuckled. Yes, this would have been almost a great day for him, and he would celebrate it… Here he was, with an almost unharmed, prospering base, a small army of combat machines, and the experience of a near victory behind him.

Revenge was sweet, and his next plan would come over the hedgehog and his silly friends before they even realized what hit them… Now Robotnik truly und unabashedly laughed.

* * *

Although being the fastest thing alive it had taken Sonic hours to reach the place just outside Eggman's base where they'd left the new Tornado. But the long run through various landscapes had lifted the hedgehog's spirit even more than it had been before. Whistling to himself, Sonic bounced into the cockpit of the silvery biplane, just briefly orientating himself on the panels before flicking the numerous switches.

The engine started running smoothly and began turning the propeller. Sonic smirked. Just judging from the almost total lack of vibrations and the greatly reduced noise compared to their old plane Tails had outdone himself.

Five minutes later the hedgehog was fully enjoying the outcome of his little brother's work, though keeping the direction in mind making the way there a rollercoaster ride in the air, a slalom around cloud tops, with loops and spirals. While it was true usually Tails was the one flying their plane – Sonic just had to admit the fox was many times better at this than he was – Sonic was also a skilled pilot and sometimes really enjoyed flying.

Upon reaching the ruins, he circled the top a few times, watching Tails and Knuckles jump to fly respectively glide over to him. Moving up onto the wings, the hedgehog allowed Tails the controls again.

"I must say I love your new plane, little bro," Sonic smiled in greeting.

Tails beamed proudly. "Handles ace, doesn't she?"

"Mondo ace, yeah." Sonic gave the fox a thumbs-up. "Dear passengers, please store your treasure boxes securely, we expect a juicy travel!"

Shaking his head at Sonic's joking notification, Knuckles gently tapped the wooden box that sat on his lap. "It's all here and I got a good hold of it. – That's no excuse for you to turn me upside down all the time, y'know?"

Tails turned around to the echidna. "Nah, I won't shake you."

"Good." Knuckles leaned back into the seat, visibly enjoying the stream of air about his nose.

"See? No worries, Knux." Sonic blinked an eye at the red echidna. "Tails flies a lot better than you…"

Cocking a brow, Knuckles looked up at the hedgehog again. "What?"

"The one time you touched the controls of a flying thing we crashed on Space Colony Ark…" Sonic grinned.

Knuckles grumbled. "Oh, shut it, hedgehog."

* * *

The coastside of Mystic Ruins was bathed in sunlight, the ocean below a wide field of twinkling sapphire.

Sonic knelt on the wing until Tails had stopped the plane in front of the hangar. Gracefully somersaulting to the ground of the runway, the blue hedgehog found a pink hedgehog walking towards them.

Amy Rose had not fully reached them when her steps faltered and she stopped, staring wide-eyed at the third member of the trio before her. "You…?

Knuckles shrugged, the treasure box tugged under his left arm and the rest of the relics in his right hand. "I know," he noticed dryly, "I'm not as dead as I look."

Sonic and Tails burst out laughing, and on Amy's face a smile slowly started brushing off the shock.

"That's wonderful!", the pink hedgehog squealed. "But what happened?"

"Umm… how about you clear that one up and I go juice?" Sonic pointed somewhere into the distance.

Knuckles smirked knowingly, Tails shook his head and Amy giggled.

"You can stay," she said, tilting her head at the blue hedgehog. "You don't have to run from me. I stopped; I won't chase you any more. I realized you don't like me that way, and I want to accept this. A girl should do something else in her life but running after a boy, shouldn't she?"

"… Well, I guess." Sonic stared at her dumbfoundedly. Right now he was looking so stupid Tails had to cover his mouth with a flat hand to keep from laughing out and Knuckles was regarding his shoes as if they were a new sight to him just to avoid Sonic noticing his grin and killing him for it once he got out of his shock.

"That's what Cream said, too." Amy just kept talking, either not noticing Sonic's bewilderment or deciding to ignore it. "So, I'm over you, Sonic. I'll start a new life, a life for myself."

"Uh, that's really cool, Amy," Sonic managed to say, still looking at her as if he'd seen a ghost. He'd thought for a moment something was definitively strange about Amy back in the jungle, but he'd forgotten the incident over everything that had happened after that.

Playfully running a hand through her bangs, Amy smiled at him. "You know, you're still utterly cute when you look like that."

"Hey, I thought you said you're 'over me'?" Sonic blinked.

"Well, that doesn't mean you look anything like less good. I just realized I'll never get you and there are most likely a lot of other handsome guys around." The girl giggled again. "We can still be friends, Sonic, okay?"

The blue hedgehog nodded. It was what he'd wished they could be for years. "Yeah, sure. If I don't have to run away from you, I might even be able to hang out with you sometimes." A grin slipped onto his face.

"Then this is all set." Amy grinned too, spinning around a little to face Knuckles again. "You still didn't answer my question…"

The echidna shrugged. "There isn't that much to say. I got captured by Eggman, in the ruins he ordered a few robots to get me to a plane thing, and just when we'd left an accident set of Eggman's stored explosives and the entire place blew up. Eggman and I luckily escaped and he held me prisoner in his base… well, until Sonic and Tails got me out."

"Then Eggman captured all of us again and forced us to help him find a treasure," Tails took over. "We went through some old ruins and-"

"And in the end the treasure turned up to be of no use to Eggman and he ran off to his base moping," Sonic finished, starting to laugh.

After a couple minutes of exchanging jokes on the unlucky scientist and his dreams of world domination that just kept failing, Amy looked at her watch. "I gotta catch the train. I promised to be at Cream's this afternoon; her mum invited me for tea." She looked at the echidna again. "Uh, Knuckles… Would you let me have this small vase you have and this round stone thing with the symbols?"

Knuckles looked down on the collection of items in his hold. "Hmm… Why do you want them?"

"I could do a few friends of mine a big favor if I got them." She smiled. "Pleeeeeeease…"

"Okay, okay, you can have them," the echidna gave in, unable to stand her puppy-dog-eyed look.

"Thank you! I knew you had a big heart in there!" Happily Amy took the vase and plate from Knuckles' hands. "See ya then, guys!"

"Sure, bye Amy." The trio looked after the girl as she started running off, heading for the train station not too far from Tails' workshop.

Sonic looked between the others. "You plan on growing roots here? How about we shift all that stuff inside?"

Knuckles nodded. "Sounds sensible." Following the hedgehog towards the house, the echidna smiled as he watched Sonic bouncing softly with every step, his quills gently bobbing up and down. "Someone's in a great mood, huh?"

Sonic turned around to him, walking backwards, hands folding behind his neck. "Yup! I have reason, don't I? I mean, you turn out to be still among the living, Eggman's plan screwed up on him, Tails built a wonderful new biplane and I can finally live without getting haunted by a lovesick girl. Could there be anything better?"

Tails laughed. "You're right. This must be your lucky day…"

Chuckling a little, too, Knuckles regarded his blue friend. "You should have seen your face, Sonic… But didn't you like it one bit? At least she really admired you…"

"Yeah, probably. But there is a difference between being admired and getting stalked, even though I know she did it just because she liked me a lot." Sonic shrugged a little. "Y'know, I never wanted to hurt her, but I really see her more as a sort of little sister maybe. I'm just not the type for romance I think. I can't imagine to get married to anyone…"

Knuckles looked at him strangely. "No way. If you'd be married to anything, it'd be running around like mad." He blinked. "That… sounded a lot more intelligent than I meant it to sound."

Sonic laughed. "You should become a psychologist, Knux." He stuck out his tongue.

Tails giggled. "But he's right. It'd be either that, or the world's biggest chili dog!"

Now all three of them broke into laughter, Knuckles struggling to keep a hold of all the stuff he carried and Sonic nearly tripping over and landing on his tail.

* * *

"Would you like some more tea?", Vanilla asked indicating the tea pot that sat on the small but beautifully decorated table between them.

Amy nodded. "Thank you. The cake is great, too."

"I made it," Cream piped up, beaming happily at the praise.

"That's great, Cream." Amy smiled, reaching for another piece of the cake. She'd so regret this the next time she checked her weight… or maybe she wouldn't. Shrugging to herself, the pink hedgehog was getting ready to ask her hosts if someone else wanted more cake when the door bell rang.

"I'll get it!", Cream announced hopping off her chair and darting for the door.

"Slowly, Creamy!", her mother called after her, softly shaking her head.

She didn't get a response out of her daughter who – as the sounds clearly told - had already opened the door. "Oh, hello Mister Vector and Mister Espio. Hi Charmy."

"Hello Cream," the crocodile greeted. "Is your mother home?"

"Yes, Amy's here, too!", the little rabbit replied. "We're having tea and cake."

"Cake? Where is it?", Charmy blurted out.

"May we come in?", Espio asked politely, ignoring the bee.

"Yes, of course." Just a moment later little Cream walked into the living room again, proudly guiding the three detectives. "Mum, we got some more guests!"

"I see, Dear." Vanilla smiled. "Hello. Would you like some cake?"

"First, we'll have to get to business, M'am," Vector started, gesturing at Espio.

The cameleon opened a bag he'd held tucked under his arm, revealing the two lost items to the rabbit family.

Carefully Vanilla took the things from Espio's hands, placing them on the table. "Oh, you really got them back… Thank you."

"This is our job, M'am," Vector said blushing.

Amy put a hand over her mouth to conceal her giggles.

"Can I have some cake now?", Charmy threw in bluntly, earning himself a frowning look from Espio, but Vanilla smiled.

"Of course you can. All of you are invited."

Espio and Vector protested half-heartedly, but Charmy had already taken a seat next to Cream and was loading a plate for himself with a pile of cake. A moment later the two others were seated between the little bee and Amy.

"How did you get it back anyway?", Vanilla asked after everyone had gotten some tea and food.

"Oh, it was detective work, M'am," Vector said and tried a piece of the cake. "Hmm, this is really good."

Cream beamed.

"You know," Espio took over, "We can't get into details. It's a secret within the agency."

"Just the agency?", Amy asked, smiling at the chameleon next to her.

He tilted his head. "Plus some talented allies that helped out."

Amy blinked an eye at him. "Thought so."

Espio cupped his chin in his hand, smiling against his nature. But who could blame him today? They had done their job, after they already thought they'd fail it, throughout the recent adventure they had gained friends and allies they couldn't expect to find, and as Amy had told him even the believed to be dead Knuckles was fine. A perfect day for Espio if he even remembered one.

He looked at Amy. "I just wonder if that ally would like to join us again in the future if we need help. Perhaps she's got other important things to do…"

Amy shrugged, smiling again. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out one day…" She pointed at the tea pot. "Would you like some more?"

* * *

Knuckles sat on the small stairway leading up to the entrance to Tails' house and workshop and watched the sun starting to set over the ocean. A soft breeze from the sea the echidna hadn't been aware he'd missed gently brushed through his long spines and a small smile lit on his face.

Actually, he might quite well be the only one having gotten anything out of this whole thing, and he wondered if anything the people involved had endured was worth the outcome. To him, personally, the 'treasure' they'd found did bear a lot of meaning; objectively Eggman had a point saying it was close to worthless.

Knuckles' gaze slowly got lost within the bright twinkles on the deep blue sea he looked upon. For him, what he'd found today would always have its place among the most valuable things in his life, directly after the Master Emerald, his home Angel Island… and the looks on Sonic's and Tails' faces earlier that day.

Resting his hands behind his neck, the echidna leaned back on the stairs, Sonic's words to Eggman coming back to him. _'It's never about what you get, it's how much of a blast you have getting it.'_ Knuckles smirked. Though you could question the blue hedgehog's choice of words, it might very well be the most intelligent thing he'd voiced in a while, if not ever… But still, it was a Sonic statement. For Knuckles, a satisfactory outcome did belong into the mix of factors to classify something as 'good'. At least, that was what he'd been used to think...

The echidna's musing was interrupted when he heard the door opening followed by the soft thuds of nearing footsteps behind him and he looked up to find Sonic casually strolling out of the house. Lightly bouncing down the stairs the blue hedgehog stepped past the echidna and turned to face him standing at the bottom of the treads.

"You cool sitting here?"

Knuckles gave him a small nod. "Yeah. I was thinking."

Sonic smiled. "Didn't mean to disturb you; I just need to get past… to run, y'know." The smile grew to a trademark grin.

"I see." Knuckles smirked.

"Don't think I'll miss dinner though…" The hedgehog blinked an eye at him, still grinning.

Knuckles shook his head. "I would have never expected you to."

Sonic's grin broadened another bit. "Not that much of a Knucklehead anyway it seems."

In faked anger Knuckles lifted a spiked fist at him. "You better see that you get outta here, hedgehog."

"Yup, I never planned on camping here," the hedgehog gave back and stuck out his tongue. "See ya later, Knux."

The echidna tilted his head at his friend when he started turning away. "Where're you running?"

Sonic shrugged, clearly not having contemplated the matter. "I'll see when I get there I guess." A smile wiping the second of thoughtfulness off his features, the blue hedgehog shot Knuckles a short wave that swiftly morphed into a running start.

Shaking his head to himself, Knuckles' eyes followed the blue streak disappearing between the hills, feeling another smile tug on his lips. "Why did I ask?"

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Is it really the treasure of gold, or the dance on the rainbow itself?'
> 
> If you asked me, I'd always pick the rainbow.


End file.
